Motorcycle mania

Hey Walt,

Maybe you could get like 1/10th of that for your mini chopper....20g....all you need is the right sucker....umm err..... Customer !!

Jeff

chopper....20g....all

Hey Jeff, i finally received the front wheel (from an old yamaha moped) and mounted it last night, along with making the headlight brackets. One more day and it's done! (i threw a couple of pics up on the website) Man, i am gonna look hilarious riding that baby down the street... "fat guy on a little bike" I dont look so round on my harley!

I really appreciate yoru feedback and clarification on this. I've been scratching my head on the terminology for some time, and your feedback is very rich.

I recall being very irritated at the different usages of the term "annealing". In glass, it is associated with slow cooling for stress relief. But in the Monster Garage, (and elsewhere) it is used to describe mild heating and subsequent air cooling for the purpose of softening sheetmetal.

yeah I hate waiting for bikes just got told it will be 3 more weeks for my new Yamaha far ,

sheetmetal.

I'm glad you find it helpful, Joe. In machining, there is a lot of old jargon and terminology that's available in the old machining books, but it hasn't been kept up very well in recent years.

Machinery's Handbook stays generally true to the traditional meanings. They even get a little edgy about the misuse of heat-treating terms, especially "stress relieving," "normalizing," and "annealing." They all have very specific meanings in regard to metals.

But the term is used loosely in the automotive trades. Almost any kind of heat-softening is "annealing" to them.

It goes with the way they use "billet."

Ed Huntress

The first time I remember hearing the term billet used to describe nearly every automotive accessory was from the Shade Tree Mechanics. Looking back, I can't really believe I actually watched that show.

Shawn

Cool Article!

JLD

Question for you Mr. Huntress -

I've got a feel for how loosely people use the word "anneal" - but whose usage is most correct ? I tend to think that the glassblowers "stress relieving" usage is most correct.

I guess what I'm asking is this - who corrupted the term "annealing" ? Any thoughts ?

This is not a quiz - just picking your brain.

Thanks, Joe

Hell, I always thought it meant softening or generally releaving stresses, typically by heating to a critical temperature (for glass, around

Tim

-- "I've got more trophies than Wayne Gretsky and the Pope combined!" - Homer Simpson Website @

Oh, I don't think anyone corrupted it, Joe. It's a really old term and it's been applied to both metals and glasses since before the industrial age.

Most metals, including copper, brass, and aluminum, are annealed by heating them to some high temperature and then (preferably) quenching them quickly. Steel is annealed by heating it to a temperature that is specifically above its transition temperature (which varies by alloy but which falls somewhere around 1600 deg. F) and then cooling it very *slowly*. If you heat steel to the same temperature but allow it to cool in air, that's called "normalizing," and it produces a softening effect similar to annealing in most alloys but it leaves a finer grain structure.

So the term is a technical one in the business of working steel. Spheroidize-annealing, normalizing, stress-relieving (which involves a long soak at a temperature *below* the transition temperature), and tempering (also known as "drawing") also are technical terms. They all involve a process conducted at a specific set of temperatures for a specific length of time, and they all result in some softening of steel, along with other effects. The times and temps vary by alloy, but the results and the processes are well-defined.

I don't know if that's true for glass. It's less true for other metals than for steel, because annealing steel must accomplish three things: relieving stress; softening the metal from a work-hardened or heat-hardened state; and increasing grain size, which is an issue in cold-forming. In the process it also, usually, changes grain *structure*, or phase -- typically from martensite to coarse pearlite. You can look those last words up if you're interested. It gets complicated. Annealing other metals is much less complicated.

BTW, Mr. Huntress is my father.

Ed Huntress

I have some stainless steel round stock (ground to size) I bought in a pile of misc. steel and plastic from a medical device manufacturer auction sale. The stainless was tagged implant grade by the supplier. What does that refer to the purity or the grade? Not that it matters any more, part of it is a weathervane now. Steve Peterson

Believe it or not, I've been studying this stuff for a while but have'nt found an explanation anywhere as good as the one you just gave.

In glassblowing or casting, annealing is definately also a technical term. If you allow some molten glass to cool too quickly it will shatter and deflagrate sending glass chips flying everywhere as it cools and self destructs. It has to be cooled very slowly to eliminate any build up of internal stresses. Almost all glass items are cooled gradually in a special furnace called a lehr. The thicker the cross section, the longer it takes to cool.

I'm glad to hear that, Joe. Publishers used to pay me good money for doing that kind of thing. It's good to know I can still pull it off once in a while.

Glass is an interesting technology unto itself. Living in the state that brought us the Booze bottle and numerous other innovations, you'd think I would have learned some more about it. But, nope, I don't know anything about the technical side of it.

Ed Huntress

I picked up a bit from Mike Firth's website I think... where'd he run off to...

Tim

-- "I've got more trophies than Wayne Gretsky and the Pope combined!" - Homer Simpson Website @

Take a look in rec.crafts.glass. I think I saw something about a new url

mj

I would guess probably 316LVM which is vacuum melted. Implant grade probably means it meets the ASTM spec F-138, which basically specifies the purity of the alloy, and it's basic chemistry. F-138 is essentially a bit cleaner than regular 316L, and from what I understand, has a little more nickel, so as to be less magnetic, for MRI's and such. If that weathervane falls off your house and embeds itself in your head, don't bother pulling it out, you won't be poisoned by excess nickel, or chromium, or various impurities.

Gene