unusual threading die adjustment

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Look for a four-volume book set of _Ingenious Mechanisms_ to see lots of ways to do things. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols
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Actually Segway was pretty typical for a small company begun and run by engineers with an idea. I also helped develop a new color printer concept of the former Centronics engineers and was a tech for new product development at Unitrode.

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When it came out I was working on a very similar LSI-11 mini-computer based Automated Test Equipment project with an equally well-organizd group.We all read the book and saw nothing to change. The Ph.D in charge was a brilliant, easy-going beard, ponytail, sandals, VW bus type who worshipped Feynman.

Just as we completed it the economy tanked, orders for new capital equipment vanished, and the company folded. R&D isn't a secure long-term job.

The pattern I've seen, known, read of or experienced in larger companys was competent engineers being pushed into management to make decisions about what (or not) to develop next, while the engineering grunt work fell upon younger engineers or co-ops / interns who still remembered how to calculate, and technicians like me who knew how to build prototypes of testable, manufacturable working product.

I often began with a pencil scribbled schematic, parts list and verbal description of the desired result. Once my completed schematic had been approved they left me alone to build it however I chose. A particularly hands-on engineer might model the dimensions of patch antennas, RF transmission lines and matching stubs in the circuit board material we had chosen.

A quirk I've noticed in more academic environments is what I call the Artist Colony style of management, in which everyone has a supervisory title and does their own thing independently, without formal coordination. It's effective with a small group of cooperative people, as long as the tasks can be divided without overlaps. Community Theatre productions were like that too.

=== I've been cutting and bending 22 gauge galvanized on a 30" 3-in-1 sheet metal machine. It struggles with 22 and 24 would be easier.

-jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

The sort of problem I have difficulty with is for example how to splice 4" x 8' steel channel for a 16' gantry hoist track without the bolt holes weakening it or the heads or shanks interfering with the trolley wheels. Welding would make it too long to store under cover. Hand-fitting the bolt holes to minimize play is acceptable, tapered shank bolts aren't.

I have a design and the materials for the intended use where it's suspended from a roof beam at the center splice and tripods at both ends. The version without center support is a paper exercise though I might use a good solution.

C4 x 5.4 depth=4, width=1.584, web=0.184, area=1.59, Ixx=3.85, Iyy=0.319 I get a safe(?) working stress of 12.5 ksi with a 500 Lb centered load, or 1000 Lbs for the two 16' channels together.

-jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Interesting. I wonder what percentage of companies are small (not the SBA's number

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Praise Dickey!

Ooh Noo!

Lost the "e" off stripe there.

Not what I expected, but I ran from corporate life after brief exposure. Dilbert's life is real!

The sheer quantity of Good Shit(tm) which first was sketched on napkins and torn pieces of paper never fails to amaze me.

And that works?

Does the struggle leave you with a less-sharp bend, or what? What width stock are you bending?

Reply to
Larry Jaques

3/4" angle 24" long, and the bend is tighter at the ends than in the center. I corrected the angles by clamping them in a home made pan brake as a vise and adjusting the angle with a rubber hammer and this:
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They are corner reinforcements for an insulated plywood and foam box for the Alpicool C20 freezer, whose insulation is inadequate in a hot car.

I made the 4' pan brake to form white aluminum flashing to cover my exterior window frames, which I rebuilt in PT wood that doesn't hold paint well. The brake isn't nearly stiff enough to bent 22 gauge steel but it clamps it well.

When I was completed and was adjusting the brake a neighbor stopped by, asked what it was, then when I told him, said I could borrow his

10' Tapco siding brake.

-jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Thot so.

I have the cast iron version of that from eons ago.

Bueno.

Rat bastid. He waited, eh?

Reply to
Larry Jaques

The welded and machined end hinge and clamp assemblys bolt to straight channel, angle and bar stock, so it wasn't recognizable until fully assembled. I didn't know he had the brake, they aren't common homeowner tools. Another neighbor gave me a leftover roll of the white aluminum flashing.

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

I retract my curse.

This is true, and mfgrs are very, very proud of those brakes.

Nice score.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

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