Silver Case

Welding went ok last night. My big breakthrough was kicking the stool away, squatting down, and holding the TIG torch like a pencil. Why does that all help? Because then I can really see the luminescent green arc cone hitting the material and to see how the weld pool is behaving. In some ways, it feels very similar to oxy-acetylene brazing.

I did lots of butt joints then got bored so I started lap joints. The first two were harrowing disasters. On the third I consulted my Miller TIG handbook which explained the angles to hold the torch and rod. That made all the difference in the world and I laid down several laps with minimal scalloping or undercutting of the upper plate. For fun I also welded a couple mitered, thick aluminum tubes. That was a lot of material to heat up and the cleaning action seemed to be boiling off unlimited quantities of garbage from the plate.

Don’t ask about the corner joint I tried to weld.

I brought my welds to the workshop today to do some destructive forensics on them… to see how deep the welds penetrated, how strong they were, etc. Aside from the strength test of the lap joint (I had to do some substantial pounding of a wedge to break the weld), I couldn’t determine anything. The aluminum filler rod (er5356) must be identical or very close to the aluminum plate because it was absolutely impossible for me to see where the weld stopped and the base material began. It was nothing like the welding textbook photos.

I’d upload all my photos, but I forgot the camera at Straits Dispatch, so I’ll have to do it later. I won’t be in the workshop much tomorrow or this weekend because Ling will be away having a solo mother’s vacation in Kuala Lumpur. She hasn’t spent a night away from Luke in very-close to five years (he turns five in June!!!). So this is a big deal, but mostly to Ling. Luke doesn’t seem to care (although tonight I think he was testing how much he could get away with while Ling was out for the evening) and I’m ok with it. Ling has left me a large schedule and agenda for Luke’s Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It’s written in a thick magic marker as if it were for a five year old to read. Perhaps she thinks Luke will be able to cross-check me?

My Juki sewing machine has really pissed me off. It was sewing great, then some thread caught, and ever since its tensioning will not work properly. The thread behaves as if the top thread tension is too low. I can tighten that and loosen the bobbin tension and it didn’t help, in fact it made it worse. (the bobbin thread lies flat along the wrong side, the top thread makes big hoops on the wrong side and as I fussed with the tension more and more, eventually was making soft loops on the right side as well). It feels like something is out of adjustment beyond just the tension adjusters, and I know I have threaded everything properly, so I am going to have them send a technician over and sort this out. Very irritating.

The 9Velos are approaching completion. The main frames are totally done and right now I’m working on the forks. As soon as those two are done, I’ll clean the whole lot up and send the frames and forks for powder-coating. I screwed up yesterday and made fork blades to the wrong dimensions. Fortunately they are perfect for another bike project I have scheduled next so I didn’t have to scrap them, but it set me behind a day. Fingers crossed, I should have both frames finished on Monday. (I doubt I’ll get to the shop this weekend)

I stumbled on an interesting story in the Economist today, The lowdown on teardowns: Ripping apart smart-phones reveals their true cost

GADGET-LOVERS the world over are already salivating at the thought of getting their hands on Apple’s much-hyped tablet computer, which is expected to be revealed on January 27th. Most of them just like the idea of playing with a new high-tech toy. But a few have darker designs. They cannot wait to rip the device apart, analyse its design, identify its parts and calculate how much it costs to make.

These “teardowns”, as they are called, are common practice in the electronics industry, and are usually performed in-house. Now, however, more of this activity is being outsourced to specialised firms such as iSuppli and UBM TechInsights. Their findings provide a glimpse into the inner workings not just of individual devices but also the fast-growing consumer-electronics business itself.

I guess this makes perfect sense, in fact, I bought an expensive messenger bag in Tokyo from Fredrick Packer in order to see how they did their fine embroidery. So it makes sense that this is widely practiced in the manufacturing world.

These firms apparently go into excruciating detail in figuring out not only how the product was built.