Wrong damn angle ...

"Prototyping"... You recognise "prototyping" as everyone getting together and trying ideas, seeing which ones work and if so how well?

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I saw little of that or at least wasn't invited. Usually the design responsibility was partitioned among a small team, each member with a well defined scope, such as one electrical, one mechanical and one optical engineer, plus me helping all of them and perhaps writing software. If one hit a difficult problem they would try to solve it themselves or with me building their trial hardware, having two equal engineers on it can cause friction unless it can be cleanly divided. Larger projects were more finely partitioned, e.g. to the individual circuit board level. As the lab tech I was rarely asked my opinion until I had proven myself as a source of innovation. Then I received an area of responsibility such as test and calibration and had discussions with my boss, or sometimes handled the documentation part of coordinating the team effort, due to my drafting experience. I did once loan the team a spectrum analyzer when there was a problem with motor speed variation.

My grandfather complained about this sort of thing at NASA. He was a "research mechanic." It was his job to figure out how to setup the experiments the engineers and scientists wanted to run in his lab at Lewis Research Center. That's the way he explained it to me back around

1980 anyway. His complaints often went one further. They often didn't even bother to check if the exact same experiment had been done before. He'd listen in frustration while thinking... I ran this for the another new kid who came in... ten years ago.

My grandfather complained about this sort of thing at NASA. He was a "research mechanic." It was his job to figure out how to setup the experiments the engineers and scientists wanted to run in his lab at Lewis Research Center. That's the way he explained it to me back around

1980 anyway. His complaints often went one further. They often didn't even bother to check if the exact same experiment had been done before. He'd listen in frustration while thinking... I ran this for the another new kid who came in... ten years ago. Bob La Londe

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I wasn't complaining. A degree gives one a fairly standard, predictable set of knowledge while I was strong in areas where I had practical or theoretical exposure and very weak where I didn't. My chemistry and physics training gave me a different, wider but shallower background which I tried to make complement the deeper, narrower education of EEs. Another tech did well based on his Astronomy degree.

It was clear that at least some EEs hadn't learned how to extrapolate beyond what they had been taught. Perhaps that is a reflection on professors who chose academia over industry. I was more willing to take risks because I had less to lose; I could still keep soldering after making a bad guess.

Yes. Exactly. The processing and the means of progress is a multidimensional fully linked "space". Links are elastic, and they can rearrange on new discoveries or errors identified and correct relations identied. But it's the idea of every dynamically linked. So rendering a text description is "challenging".

This is why you need to have a team of engineers and scientists whose brief is to "run with the job". You are always finding your way along, the significant guiding of the physical things happening (eg. the bridge is now getting its deck) is in the minds of the team, and anything written is some after-the-event summary with the key concepts coming into perspective to convey benefitting from hindsight.

By the way - major alway present "force" - competitive pressure.

There will be other teams in other places trying to do the same thing. So you have to be very efficient to be there first or at least in the front runners. So it's a game, and is a fun one. Basically we get paid for putting the endeavour up among the leaders where the overall endeavour can be remunerative. In return for which we have thinking time and a lot of fun.

My Doctorate - there was a fairly determinate way to get to the outcome - but it would have taken millions of times more resources than I had and someone would have got there first by another means. Which I did by an "indeterminate path". I could see there were "galloping grounds" - but also "hidden ground" where I had no idea at the outset how I was going to cross it. Nothing looked physically impossible (that would mean contravening a known Law of the Universe) in my instinct, so I simply had to have faith that I would find my way through when I arrived at "valleys" as I came upon them and had to cross.

Ha haaaa, brilliant "ploy".

Some of my articles on my website are a kind of diary. That's why I don't care if the hard work takes me only to what those who work in the field consider fairly much "level 101".

Here's an example

"Hydrodynamics, Froude number and a clever vessel design" I realised there was something special about these vessel - compared

*only* to all that I had known = yachts, tugboats, etc. Having got to the end of that article, I was in a position to understand vessels of this type have been around for at least 30 years and are widely known in the marine world (the balance of all positives and constraints gives them a narrow niche application I myself had never encountered). But for me - that's okay. Doing the article served my purpose

• it's my "diary entry"

• I learned along the path of writing it

For learning, this is 100% an exercise in learning

"Investigate Torrey Canyon / Pollard Rock wreck circumstances" Every question along the way was soliciting information - the most significant word-of-mouth. I only contributed identifying what the tide was doing at about 0800 on the 18th of March 1967. Which all on my little owneo I found could be had from oceanographic academic collections with tide data. That was in my area of "leading" ability. I found the data, then knew how to "throw around" that much data and extract selected graphs which make sense to anyone. But that was enough to bring in all the guidance which was 100% of how I progressed developing that article.

Changing tack - I suspect the war in Europe is straining our systems and revealing their weaknesses. I suspect that 40+years on from "moving into a post-industrial world" what looked brilliant before has a significant part of the population who instinctively "quack" responses and their minds have only the sequential linearity of picking along rote rule sets. Nothing of the concurrent multidimensional thinking with all its power but its scary uncertainties and the complete unknowns. That a bank (SVB) which specialising in being a portal for the money flows in and out of innovation collapses due to the strains of a war is "unpromising" (tactfully putting it).

Ha-haa - "wrong angle" - pontificating fantasies of "right and wrong", "good vs. evil", etc., will "win the day". Oh nooooo!!!

Thanks for starting an interesting thought process Jim. To Jim and all of you, best wishes, Rich S

I really enjoy hangin' out where the smart guys are . I may not understand everything they say but still I learn a lot .

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I worked at a series of small companies that all failed for reasons other than technical ability, typically it was crippling lawsuits from envious competitors. At the printer company a part of my job was wowing investors with a display of our ability. When they arrived the boss would ask for a business card which he gave to me, and I hastily digitized and cleaned up their logo and printed a stack of paper with their name and logo in color as a letterhead. In 1985 that was enough to get another quarter or half year of operating funding.

I drew several complete printer fonts in several sizes, regular, bold and italic, and logos of many large corporations. I never would have guessed that I'd someday be making a living as a digital graphic artist. The computer workstation was a custom lashup based on an HP 1000 minicomputer, the inspiration for HAL in "2001".

omits the early development at Exxon Office Automation and Howtek Corp, which was the Centronics engineers.

"You can’t print on photo paper / specialty papers." You definitely could with the Howtek version. It printed (in reverse) on clear acetate, paper towels, aluminum offset printing plates and crudely on tee shirts. We had fun tinkering though the place wasn't quite the engineers' playground as Segway.

After the place folded due to a lawsuit one of the engineers used the molten plastic inkjet concept to develop 3D printing. Solid ink had piled up deeply around the ink jet test station. It was too brittle to make practical objects and we were too busy to pursue it but it gave us ideas.

I really enjoy hangin' out where the smart guys are . I may not understand everything they say but still I learn a lot .

Snag

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I don't understand everything I write and I've come to suspect that Bob Dylan didn't either.

I wouldn't know. He would start to sing, my ears would bleed, and I would have to leave the area.

I learned a lot here on NNTP news.

Most then for me, in the 1990's and "noughties", was on sci.engr.joining.welding but that group is more-or-less defunct. One of the mentors who gifted me a life which has been good is now deceased. He gave up on s.e.j.w. but we kept in private communication until he died recently essentially from old age. Things I am puzzling over now I know I could have run to some resolution in a few messages. But now I have to be "on my own two feet" and find my way leading in a world where the answers are not available and the only way is to rediscover knowledge.

rec.crafts.metalworking had high 90's% off-topic posts then and I kept an eye on it but that was mainly it. Now rec.crafts.metalworking seems to have become a place for the remaining practitioners to group.

So I think you are in the right place.

The "lawsuits" angle is interesting to hear of. Nett - strangled and long-term withered the economy, or in reality was part of a strong economy, or some "six of one and half a dozen of the other" state?

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I've used the RMS Titanic the same way. The basic facts are simple enough and a survivor observed the aft-most extent of the hull breach. However all else is a muddle of inconsistent eyewitness testimony despite most having no reason to lie. The incident and the ship's structure have been reconstructed in exquisite detail and subjected to several computer modelings, plus James Cameron used his full scale replica to test theories. I think it is a fine example of the successes and failures of investigative technique.

The necessities of filming are responsible for some deviations, especially the need for multiple "takes" without destroying the set. Scenes without Jack & Rose are very authentic, down to acquiring the correct rug pattern and vintage lifeboats and functional Welin davits. Scenes with them are fantasy.

Was that Ernie Leimkuhler? I knew he had gone to mostly playing on Facebook and web forums. He's on my friend's list, but I have not seen any posts from him in a while. Most recent thing I see from him is a post from January 2022 on Seattle Metal Heads web forum.

You may find you are becoming the expert, and maybe should consider being the Ernie in the group when it comes to welding.

I recently found myself in that position on a CNC group on Facebook. I'm not knowledgeable enough to consider myself an expert, but I saw some people posting wrong things about VFDs to somebody who was asking some basic questions. I corrected some things I know from experience and past help from this group, and the next thing I knew a couple people were directing secondary questions directly to me. For me the key was to share would I knew for sure, tell when I didn't know how the magic worked, and make sure I at least used the right terminology.

Yeah, a lot of old RCMers left. I still keep in touch with Lloyd Sponenburgh on the CamBam forums. He's still making firecrackers in his shop when he isn't battling hurricanes.

I'm not ready to give up on this group yet either. If you pay attention you will see some of the old guys are still reading it and pop up with an answer from time to time.

Ernie helped a lot yes.

The huge amount of guidance I got was from Randy Zimmerman. I met him a couple of times in Winter 2008/2009. Flew into Vancouver to see some family then there on the Island. He was very very kind to me. I am glad his family is doing well, because through Randy I owe them so much. I was just starting Aluminum GMAW during the pandemic when he found he was terminally ill. He helped me get a long way into that in a short time. He died just over a year ago. This is where I am at on that topic of Ali-GMAW.

"Ali MIG/GMAW welding with quality control" I don't have anyone to ask, so I've "had to" design this project which I believe would enable me to know how a competent conformant Ali-GMAW weld is done.

Thanks for the wise words. I have big gaps in my knowledge and experience. I do however sometimes "score".

One weekend I rebuilt the railings around the perimeter of the deck of a big storage barge (flat-topped construction barge) because they'd been wiped-off in collisions. I'd got an assistant; the son of the skipper of the crewboat who though excellent on commercial boats is in reality an enthusiastic yachtmaster (sailing yachts). The skipper passed on just how much his son had enjoyed the work. We'd got a pile of steel, an oxy-propane set for heating and cutting, my toolchest, a diesel welding machine. And... My "stash" of 6010 rods (cellulosics). Unheard-of in the UK, apart from specialist pipewelders. I've never seen it done by anyone else.

Well, handrails from scaffold-tube - you can full-pen. no-prep. butt-weld it (5G) with 6010. Can only do open-arc with any machine with electronics in it, as I have known, but open-arc 6010 goes around full-pen'ing as easy as going round with a mastic-gun.

There's been others.

So maybe I should collect up what I do know and advise.

I've been told its the sound of sizzling bacon.

I always thought pulse MIG for aluminum (generally I weld .125in (3.175mm) and thinner) would help with controlling heat input allowing for longer weld beads without having to skip around to prevent overheating and fallout. I have always skipped around doing "stitch" welding as I do not have a pulse MIG. I don't "know" anything of course.

Its my understanding that it is the aluminum oxide coating that forms very quickly in room temperature air which is highly corrosion resistant (to acids). I would expect that any test with an acid etch would require mechanical cleaning immediately prior to exposure.

Just a side note here: I have boon told aluminum oxide, and more so anodized aluminum is very acid resistant, but may dissolve in bases. I have done no research or testing. To me this is just hearsay, but it might be worth a moments consideration.

There is a lot (almost all of it) in your paper that is beyond my small sphere of welding knowledge, but I still rather enjoyed reading it. Thank you for sharing.

I was thinking Ferric Chloride might make a good etchant as I have it to hand and aluminium reacts quite actively with it at PCB etchant strength so it would need to be diluted as a weld etchant. My chemistry teacher in high school mentioned it's the same type of reaction as thermite just just with Ferric Chloride instead of a ferrous oxide. I first came across it when I dipped a pencil eraser in the PCB etchant and it quickly dissolved the aluminium ferrule.

Interesting. Need to try that. If it works - how good/clear is the etch? - is the question. (obviously, whatever it does, you want to see the structure of the weld as clearly as possible).

"spray" is definitely a smooth hiss. On steel there is a "ripping" edge as you squeeze the arc-cone short, but mainly a hiss Aluminium - smooth hiss. Back in October I got invited to a welding place, and I couldn't get rid of a "ripping" sound. Owner seemed to have hopes he could jump straight to flawless welds, and had bought in a few expensive Weld Procedure Qualification plates. There was no pile of offcuts like I'd asked for. I found the "kitchen-sink method" etchant for Al, and it was clear that the arc needed to be softer and more spread (normally Al is associated with the opposite - you aren't getting fusion let alone penetration). I don't know what was special about those machines. Others have gone straight into "clean" spray.

You are rather expert...! I have never done the "dodging around". Industrial work - always had pulse available for lower thicknesses. I need to credit you know how to improvise where I don't.

I have no agenda - I switch to Pulse at less than 10m/min with 1.2mm wire [390ipm with 47thou wire] You apparently could chase spray down to a slightly lower wire-feed-speed (= current), but with a well-behaving machine which sprays well and pulses well, that is my change-over threshold.

Plate / sheet metal thicknesses - about same as what you are talking about. Well, I have only used "Pulse" Ali-GMAW putting 3mm thickness end-caps on 5mm wall-thickness structural hollow sections.

Apart from one Ali ladder job I was not happy about. They had an Ali GTAW shop, but they had 10 welders who could TIG and I was one of only two who could Ali-GMAW, so they were frightened I would end up disappearing into the TIG shop if they let me TIG.

"drain cleaner" is based on a base - ingredients indicate NaOH (sodium hydroxide). That is presumably why it works on this Ali.

Its my understanding that it is the aluminum oxide coating that forms very quickly in room temperature air which is highly corrosion resistant (to acids). I would expect that any test with an acid etch would require mechanical cleaning immediately prior to exposure.

Just a side note here: I have boon told aluminum oxide, and more so anodized aluminum is very acid resistant, but may dissolve in bases. I have done no research or testing. To me this is just hearsay, but it might be worth a moments consideration.

Bob La Londe

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Aluminum oxide is "amphoteric", meaning it reacts with both acids and bases.

"If a piece of the met­al is put in hy­drochlo­ric acid, a slow re­ac­tion takes place, as ini­tial­ly the ox­ide film will be dis­solved from its sur­face, but then the re­ac­tion speeds up." Fizzing won't be seen until the bare metal has been exposed.

Atmospheric CO2 will slowly neutralize basic / alkali etchants into carbonates (baking soda) but acids remain dangerous.

I researched the effect of food acids in meat marinade on slow cooking vessels and ended up with a Pyrex pot and Inconel temperature probe, though I can't prove a decent grade of stainless wouldn't have been as good. The stainless in my Walmart kettles lightly rusts. I had to TIG a rust pit leak on one of them.