The Tinbasher » Scrap Metal

Peddling (or Pedaling) Industrial Revolutions

Paul Woodhouse — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 01:02:10 +0000

Hands up those of you who used to dick about with their mates down some version of a ‘wreck’?

Hands up those of you who used to do it on bikes?

And hands up those of you who built ramps to jump over stuff?

If I’m counting correctly – and I rarely do – I make that to be most of you. Thing is, all we got for our troubles was a broken stem, a grazed knee (or worse) and a clip round the ear for being filthy and shredding a new pair of jeans.

After all, the torn Wrangler look sported by the likes of George Michael and Kurt Cobain, depending on your musical bent, was still a dim and distant future.

But, you have to admit that it would’ve been pretty cool to carve a career out of dicking about on a bike and getting on telly for it.

Danny Macaskill‘s derring do should obviously not be tried at home – I mean, how are you supposed to gain enough speed to jump over your living room sofa?

The following video also gets brownie points for being shot in an old Ironworks yard in Scotland. The desolation alone will undoubtedly make Jasper homesick.

Enjoy:

Seriously, next time I go back I’m dusting off my old BMX and tear-arsing around Butler Sheetmetal HQ performing ‘stunts’.

HMS Invincible E-Disposed Of

Paul Woodhouse — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 02:43:27 +0000

So, I’m sat there in my Mother’s new kitchen / dining / wildlife gawping area at her new house in Trawden – yes, of course it’s walking distance from my sister’s house – when I received an email from Deborah down at Butler Sheetmetal Towers that a guy from the BBC had been in touch wanting a quote about the impending scrapping and dismantling of the HMS Invincible – that’s a journalistic quote rather than for the job itself.

Just a couple of things:

I didn’t know they were scrapping the HMS Invincible.
Even if I had heard about HMS Invincible I’m no ship scrapping expert.

I had no intention of blagging this just for a mention on the Beeb. After all, the last time I spoke with them from behind the bar at the Shooters I inadvertently used the word ‘breasticles’.

Yes, quite.

Anyway, I rang the gentleman back from the BBC, and when he returned my call I very quickly and (hopefully) politely let him know that I was the last person he wanted to talk to.

If only we could’ve paired him up with Jasper.

But, as I’m sure you’re better aware than I, the thing was being flogged via some government clearing house site – with the dafter members of the press describing it as an eBay clone. If they mean it was up for auction on something that looked like some kids had rattled it together during lunch for their first school web project in 1999, then yes, it was an eBay clone.

But this is a captured screenshot of the page:

And the following link takes you to some current auctions in the form of 5x Hercules (with wings and engines) and 3x Type 42 Destroyers (namely HMS Exeter, HMS Southampton and HMS Nottingham). Please note the ‘add to cart’ and ‘wishlist’ buttons – nice touch. Does PayPal need a verified merchant account before it’ll handle more than a million?

The Daily Mail article speculated more than £2 million as a scrap price for the 10,000 tonnes of mild steel it contained.

But, even £5 million and the chance of a retirement in China as an international school was finally beaten by an undisclosed offer by Leyal Ship Recycling who intend to tow it to Izmir in Turkey at the end of March prior to an eight month dismantling.

Which is almost as long as it takes me to deconstruct a blog post these days.

So, in the spirit of the original question posed by the chap at the BBC – what’s your take on this? Are you pleased Britain is flogging these bits of military history off for scrap to the highest bidder or should they have been turned into museums? Or something else?

Scottish Sculptor’s Steel Sculpture Shattered in Smash

Paul Woodhouse — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:03:09 +0000

Come on. It’s not as if it isn’t an accident waiting to happen is it?

The idea of erecting large metal (or any kind of material if we’re being honest) sculptures in the middle of busy roundabouts surely isn’t the best one your local council planning meeting has had of a Monday evening?

Is it not better to circumnavigate the roundabout with your attention fully on the road and upcoming exit or is gawping at some metal clad human figure while doing a 30 mph circle preferable?

Running off the side of the road and ending up in a ditch or pranging / cutting up another driver would be the type of accident you’d expect of a rubbernecker, but plowing straight through the hedge shielding the edge of the center of the roundabout and mowing down the the sculpture you’ve been looking at seems a tad bizarre.

Andy Scott Galvanized Metal Sculpture Crash Scene

But here’s the explanation from the BBC website:

A giant sculpture of a striding man by public artist Andy Scott has been knocked over in a car accident.

The 4m (13ft) structure, installed at Muirside roundabout, Tullibody, in Clackmannanshire, is one of five pieces in the county by the artist.

It is understood a car crashed into the statue, which sits outside the village police station, at about 2110 GMT on Saturday.

Central Scotland Police said they were investigating the incident.

The sculpture – also known as the Man in Motion – is made of welded steel mosaic and has the Wallace Monument and Stirling Castle as a backdrop.

Brian Smith, a college lecturer who lives near the sculpture, said the impact of the crash must have been considerable.

He said: “Whoever crashed into it has made a fair mess.

“It looks like they’ve driven into one of the statue’s legs and brought down abut five or six tonnes of metal.

“I don’t know if it quite stopped them but it certainly slowed them down.”

Mr Smith said the erection of the piece in 2008 split the local community.

He added: “It’s quite an arresting sight when you see it lying there. I have heard from a few people that they never liked it, although I doubt they would prefer it looking like this.”

Sounds like they were sick of looking at it. Bit out of order though.

Copper Scrappers Scrap with Scrap Coppers

Paul Woodhouse — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:40:30 +0000

No longer does it seem the FBI are a suitable force in the crime against telecommunications infrastructure in the USA. In fact, there’s that much copper being stolen at such an astronomical cost to the Telcos that one of them, AT&T, is offering $3,000 for information leading to them being accosted.

We’ve all heard of the church lead thieves and manhole cover pilferers, but apparently 7,000 customers and a couple of schools were left without landline service after a three day copper binge in Atlanta last week.

A cell phone tower also was temporarily knocked out. AT&T saw 11 thefts in a week in one location, including an incredible eight in one morning. Damage to telephone lines exceeded $500 in each case. Georgia law makes that a felony, punishable by jail time and fines, the AJC report states.

The FBI has said in the past that the rising theft of the metal is threatening the critical infrastructure by targeting electrical substations, cellular towers, telephone land lines, railroads, water wells, construction sites, and vacant homes for lucrative profits. Copper thefts have increased dramatically since 2006; and they continue to disrupt the flow of electricity, telecommunications, transportation, water supply, heating, and security and emergency services, and present a risk to public safety and national security, the FBI stated.

The FBI report shows that industry and local officials are taking countermeasures to help address the scrapper problem, but apparently much more needs to be done. For example, while a variety of physical and technological security measures have been taken there are limited resources available to enforce these laws, and a very small percentage of perpetrators are arrested and convicted. Additionally, as copper thefts are typically addressed as misdemeanors, those individuals convicted pay relatively low fines and serve short prison terms.

Atlanta isn’t the only place seeing copper theft problems. In this report, Appalachian Power said more than 100 miles of copper wire has been stolen from the company’s southern West Virginia facilities alone. Replacing stolen wire can cost up to $1 million a year, the utility stated. Other thefts have been reported all across the country in recent days. One location in New Jersey has been hit three times in the last two months seeing some $13,000 worth of copper stolen. A utility in the same state this week reported a $75,000 theft of the metal.

Experts say copper is up to around $3 per pound making it a lucrative target for thieves who resell it to scrap yards mostly.

The FBI reported in 2008 that China, India, and other developing nations are driving the demand for raw materials such as copper and creating a robust international trade. Copper thieves are receiving cash from recyclers who often fill orders for commercial scrap dealers. Recycled copper flows from these dealers to smelters, mills, foundries, ingot makers, powder plants, and other industries to be re-used in the United States or for supplying the international raw materials demand. As the global supply of copper continues to tighten, the market for illicit copper will likely increase, the FBI stated.

Are there no depths AT&T won’t stoop in order to avoid complaints about their service?

I Really Wanna See Those (Slow Motion) Fingers Stop a Saw Blade

Paul Woodhouse — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 01:47:20 +0000

There’s enough frightening stuff goes on in your average sheet metal shop – none more so than Jasper arriving on a Monday morning having spent the weekend watching Braveheart on a loop coddling a bottle of Lidl’s finest cooking sherry.

Talk about pudgy round the gills and waxing not too lyrical. He’s simply a sequence of Scottish grunts and groans.

The last thing you’d want to do with him he engage in a conversation, let alone touching any kind of sharp instrument or operating machinery.

Still, it’s not like most of us aren’t a bit like that of a Monday morning.

But, fear not people. Those of you (and me), like Jasper, reaping the health and safety whirlwind due to early morning mental blurring need fear no more when faced with sharp blades doing anything over 1,000 RPM.

There’s some clever fella devised a circular saw locking system thriggered by by conduction – and with water being a conductor, that means your pinkies.

The following video is most impressive as they try and attack the blade with a limp hot dog and it shutting down without causing even the slightest of Stevie Nicks.

But, it gets darn close and then some – as in a 1,000th of an inch – then kachunk-a-blammo; the automatic locking system kicks in and halts the blade dead in its tracks.

Hot dog wieners are all well and good, but you need someone with real sausage fingers to really put it through its paces. So, the inventor steps up and volunteers his digits for the camera – one of those super duper slow-mo affairs that takes nearly as long to set up as it does to display the slowed down version of the film.

It takes a while as the crew wants to show exactly how close the guy gets with his finger and the forces / tensions on the blade as it abruptly stops. Either that, or they manage to film the first ever slow motion finger slice with Tarinto-esque blood spurts arcing across the shot that’s guaranteed to go viral.

But, I won’t tell you anymore. You can just watch it yourself:

Firemen Use Angle Grinder to Free Man’s Pipe from Steel Pipe

Paul Woodhouse — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 00:15:59 +0000

We all know that first week back after Christmas and New Year can be a lonely and desperate time. Just ask Jasper. Many’s the time he can be seen skulking in the steel racks for hours on end when it’s quiet with nary a peep out of him.

I sincerely hope he’s not up to what this geezer in a Southampton fabrication shop has been up to:

A MAN who got his genitalia stuck in a steel pipe had to be cut free by eight firefighters using an industrial grinder. The heavy duty cutting gear had to be used to remove the three-inch long hollow pipe after medics were unable to release it. The painstaking operation, which involved eight firefighters, took around an hour.

The drama began after the man took himself to the accident and emergency department of Southampton General Hospital.

Restricted blood flow had left the man in a state of arousal, and unable to remove the pipe.

Staff there were so concerned that they phoned the emergency services and a crew from Redbridge Fire Station were initially dispatched. But they had to bring in backup from St Mary’s station which has a fire truck equipped with specialist cutting gear. A disc gutter cutter, with a four-and-a-half-inch blade, was used to slice open the stainless steel pipe.

The man, in his 30s, offered no explanation for his predicament but was said to be “quite concerned and anxious”. He had been given an anaesthetic to prepare for the procedure.

St Mary’s crew manager Adrian Johnson said: “It was a very delicate operation. We did not want anything heating up.

The person who did it deserves a commendation for his nerve and steady hand.”

Meanwhile, watch manager Greg Garrett from Redbridge station added: “I’ve only come across this type of thing three or four times in my 17 years as a firefighter. It’s not a daily occurrence.”

The man’s private parts were left bruised and swollen.

I’m generally fairly reluctant to post entire articles seeming it goes against Rupert Murdoch’s grain, but I really didn’t know which bits to cut out (as the fireman said to the bloke with his knob stuck in a steel tube). I mean, this is why you’d love to be a local journalist. Maybe a fireman as well, but not the guy doing the angle grinding or holding the pipe steady.

However, feel free to go and enjoy yourselves in the comments to the article.

X-Planes Explained: Lockheed Martin Releases Open Source Social Media Platform

Paul Woodhouse — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 01:13:28 +0000

How can you not love this collection of aircraft old, new, conceptual and fictional?

But if you thought that was a fairly entertaining use of aeronautical social media usage, you haven’t had the pleasure of of being exposed to Lockheed Martin’s open source proprietary social media tool.

And if we’re being perfectly honest, neither have I. But, it’s explained as:

Lockheed Martin has been developing proprietary social media technology to facilitate interaction between employees to create and share secure content using blogs and wikis. As a result, Lockheed Martin has become a leader of this technology in the aerospace and defense industry.

“Lockheed Martin has placed an emphasis on social media adoption by finding innovative ways to integrate a social dimension into our existing process and tools while reducing total cost of ownership,” says Linda Gooden, Executive Vice President for Lockheed Martin’s Information Systems & Global Services business area. “We are excited to now share our investment back to the open source community to help other organizations meet their knowledge sharing challenges.”

The proprietary social media tool that will be released under an open source license enables employees to consume, share, and discuss information from internal and external sources.

This tool provides a personalized experience for employees and enhances their ability to track and share information in an increasingly virtual work environment. Lockheed Martin will release the source code under an open source license and will allow interested parties to download, modify, and contribute to the open source project.

Now whether it’s supposed to be used as a tool to help develop crowd-sourced fighter aircraft or a missile defense social network, I’ve no idea. But, I can just imagine the fun you could have throwing virtual smart bombs at each other as opposed to lame pesky pokes like you can on Facebook.

If only I knew where you could download it.

Duct Tape, Darts and Balloons

Paul Woodhouse — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:02:52 +0000

Yes, wrap your motor in Duck tape.

How could I not venture to the Avon Duct Tape Festival this past weekend? Avon happens to be one of the two (there may be more) duct tape capitals of the world – the other being Sarah Palin’s home village of Wasilla. And yes, it’s kind of what you expect – an excuse to plonk a few fair rides on an uneven part of a field, get tipsy listening to 80s cover bands and take part in a parade with floats held together by the stuff.

It’s in no way tacky – well I suppose the tape is (ho-hum).

With it being a fair, my good lady was determined for me to display my undying whatever by winning her some kind of fair prize – a partially paralyzed goldfish or some stuffed toy made by Chinese orphans that would be more mobile than any goldfish.

It’s not that I’m a curmudgeon so much that I understand these things are rigged. Whether you’re talking about basketball games that have spring-loaded backboards to ensure the b-ball flies off into an adjacent county, or doctored darts that have you seeking the nearest specialist to check for the early signs of Parkinson’s, the fix is in.

Balloon Darts

We hadn’t made half a circuit of the festival before I heard a redneck trying to tempt me into throwing darts at a wall of balloons. I was doing my best to ignore him, but with Steph having her heart set on something stuffed and ignoring anything I ever have to say, she’d already engaged the bugger in conversation and was shouting for me to stop.

Marvellous – some crap banter ensued between the hillbilly Barnum and myself about him not wanting to shout (even though he was turned way past 11) and me explaining there was no chance him understanding a word I was saying – which he obviously didn’t understand a word of.

He then thrust a dart into my paw and told me that whatever happened Steph would win a prize and that the dart was free. So, with my wife pleading with me via the medium of puppy peepers, and some hick blabbering nonsense, I cracked. I took a couple of steps towards the stall and languidly lobbed the dart in the general direction of the balloon board fully expecting it to explode mid-flight or drop to the floor three inches from the latex as if it’d hit an invisible sheet of Perspex. Or merely bounce off one of the balloons and do a King Harold.

No, I happened to pop two of the blighters.

I resisted the urge to clap myself or perform a Tiger Woods fist pump, and expected Steph to be handed her prize and for us to pop off for a corn dog.

Instead I was handed another couple of darts and told to pay a couple of dollars for the privilege. I was being hoodwinked and having the hoodwinkery explained to me as I handed over a $20. However, it was hoodwinkery that I have no idea what was being said. Before I could throw the next two darts, I was asked if I wanted to pay a further $5 to try and win a ‘medium’ prize.

I was being up sold without having bought anything in the first place. I hadn’t a clue what was happening, but was strangely enjoying the swift-talking swindler’s patter. The guy was a pro.

At this rate I was fully expecting to be taken into a port-a-potty and robbed of cards, cash and kidney.

Steph was starting to look stern and interjected on my behalf that we’d take our prize and run. At which he whisked the two darts out of my hand that I thought I’d paid for and reached for Steph’s prize.

Of course it wasn’t something dangling off the stall itself but something he rustled from underneath the counter out of an old plastic bag:

It basically looked like they’d partially wrapped some sausage meat in duct tape and tossed it in some boiling water. Even the dollar store would’ve considered themselves shysters for charging for it.

At least Steph found out I was right. And at least I don’t have to do that for a living.

Well not yet.

Laser Cutter Plays Super Mario Bros. Theme

Paul Woodhouse — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 23:21:15 +0000

Considering quite a few sheet metal shops are experiencing a bit of downtime at the moment, we could all do one of two things:

1. Work our nuts off trying to find extra work in order to keep the wolves from the door.

or,

2. See what tunes we can get out of our workshops’ underutilised machinery.

I have absolutely no idea how legitimate this is, but it’s supposedly a laser cutter playing the Super Mario Bros. theme:

So, set to it people. Start cranking up your notchers and guillotines and tune them in to whatever melodious or malodorous cacophony you can muster.

Then again, posting videos of you whacking a generator with a spanner pretending it’s the start of the Test Match Special Cricket Theme simply won’t wash.

Large Hadron Collider Held Together By (644,328 mtrs) of Duct Tape?

Paul Woodhouse — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:39:49 +0000

Large Hadron Collider

We all know this is some feat of engineering. However, it’s extremely difficult to get a scale of the project. Not only is it impossible to imagine the sizes of particles whizzing around at beyond breakneck speeds, but it’s even more difficult to get an idea of how bloody big the thing is from the inside.

They’ve hardly started doing guided tours.

Thankfully, a certain Peter McCready has been allowed access to the Large Hadron Collider’s gizzards and has photographed some awesome panoramic views of the thing that you can swush around in full 360 degree loveliness.

Click here and give it a second or two to load. He’s even added sound effects to get a general feel of the ho and the hum of the place. [cap doff]

But, if you swing around for long enough you’ll notice the entire thing is held together by bloody duct/duck/gaffer tape. (OK, I’ll go as far as fancy aluminium tape.)

Your average roll of duct tape

Right, so if we take a look round the LHC then it appears we’ve got gaffer tape roughly every half meter. We can’t exactly say that it goes all the way round the circumference of the inner core, but by the looks of things it could very well do. The width of the inner core is approximately 3.8 meters leading to a core circumference of 11.932 meters with a total collider circumference under the Alps of 27 kilometers. [via]

So, by my reckoning (if we’re saying there’s duct tape every half meter that goes around the whole circumference), that means 644,328 meters of duct tape tops, at a rough cost of $336,227 if I were to buy it in 6″ (144 mm) wide 55 meter rolls costing $28.70 ea.

Let’s hope they got a bulk discount.