The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Category: Oddities

Who’d’a thunk it?

  • Monthly Image: Belmar Bridge

    About five miles south of Franklin PA along the Allegheny River Trail, the Belmar Bridge carries the Sandy Creek Trail over the Allegheny River:

    Belmar Bridge - Rivets
    Belmar Bridge – Rivets

    The gap in the rivets along the main truss show where someone pried off the bronze plaque surely commemorating the bridge. The scarred surface suggests a bronze-steel battery was in effect for quite some time.

    I’m a sucker for big ironwork:

    Belmar Bridge - Truss Joint
    Belmar Bridge – Truss Joint

    It’s a look at engineering done in the days of slide rules and limited data, when overengineering wasn’t nearly as bad as ensuring the thing never, ever fell down.

    The bolts holding the beams and struts together show considerable confidence:

    Belmar Bridge - Ironwork - bolt detail
    Belmar Bridge – Ironwork – bolt detail

    Each bolt counts as single point of failure, but this one can rust for a long, long time before the risk becomes important.

    Each of those gazillion rivets required a crew to heat white hot, shove into the hole, and hammer tight.

    They don’t make ’em like that any more and I suppose it’s a good thing …

     

     

     

  • Ed’s Atomic Fireball Avocado Smoothie

    Dump into a stick blender cup:

    • 1 tsp erythritol
    • 5 drops stevia
    • ≈2 ml mint extract
    • 1/2 tsp Vietnamese Cinnamon
    • 3+ tsp cocoa powder
    • 1/2 avocado, chunked
    • 6 fl oz whole milk to make ≈10 fl oz total

    Blend thoroughly. Slurp.

    Atomic Fireball Avocado Smoothie
    Atomic Fireball Avocado Smoothie

    Notes:

    • Another scant ounce of milk makes less of a slurry
    • More cinnamon cannot possibly be a bad thing
    • Commercial mint may be more potent

    AFAICT, this is the only way to make an avocado palatable.

    There is absolutely no connection with yesterday’s post.

  • M110A2 203 mm Self-Propelled Howitzer

    It could be an M107 155 mm gun, but the double muzzle brake (the front vent is shadowed) identifies it as a mighty M110A2 203 mm self-propelled howitzer:

    M110A2 203mm Self-Propelled Howitzer - York PA
    M110A2 203mm Self-Propelled Howitzer – York PA

    Back in the day, being 30 km away from a kiloton or ten of nuclear blast was deemed Far Enough, although nobody actually pulled the string to find out. Apparently, sections of surplus barrels make hella-good bunker buster bombs, at least when you’re in a hurry.

    Obsolete, of course, explaining why it’s parked behind the York Agricultural and Industrial Museum, seen from the wonderful Heritage Rail Trail. We rode south from York almost to the the Maryland line, then back again; a good time was had by all.

  • Know When to Stop Turning

    Spotted on a motel room door:

    Motel Door Peephole - cover whoopsie
    Motel Door Peephole – cover whoopsie

    I wonder if all the peepholes in the motel were installed with a similar lack of attention to detail; it was recently renovated, so this is new work.

    For sure, they’ll never be properly adjusted …

  • Park Spoke Tension Meter vs. 20 inch Wheel Spokes

    Obviously, the good folks at Park Tool never anticipated a three-cross spoke pattern on a 20 inch wheel:

    Park Tool Spoke Tension Meter vs 406 wheel
    Park Tool Spoke Tension Meter vs 406 wheel

    It’s my trusty Park Tool TM-1 Spoke Tension Meter, unchanged since shortly after the turn of the millennium.

    For future reference, the rebuilt wheel spoke tensions came out around 25, slightly lower than the 27-ish I measured on Mary’s bike; it didn’t occur to me to measure the tension until after I’d relaxed the spokes. I’ll ride it for a while before doing any tweakage.

    The spoke pattern is pretty close to four-cross, due to the large-flange Phil Wood hubs:

    Tour Easy Front Spoke Pattern
    Tour Easy Front Spoke Pattern

    Which makes for a hella-strong wheel, particularly seeing as how it’s very lightly loaded. The Tour Easy we got for our lass came with a radially spoked rim around a Phil hub.

    I transferred the hub and laced spokes intact to the new rim by the simple expedient of duct-taping the spokes into platters, removing the nipples, stacking the rims, sliding the spokes across into their new homes, reinstalling the nipples, then tightening as usual.

  • Dismantled Bee

    This parts collection appeared atop the driveway wall, arranged just as shown:

    Dismantled Bee
    Dismantled Bee

    It seems something snagged a large bee (not a honeybee!), ate the contents, and left the wrapper behind. We’ll never know the rest of the story.

    Puts one in mind of Turner in Count Zero, though.

  • Anker LC40 Flashlight: Anodizing Fade

    The top surface of the Anker LC40 flashlight serving as the daytime running light on Mary’s bike sees plenty of sunlight, particularly when it’s sitting beside her garden plots, and the black anodized finish on the screw-in battery cap has begun fading:

    Anker LC40 Flashlight - Anodizing fade
    Anker LC40 Flashlight – Anodizing fade

    The bottom side of the cap is in fine shape, as is the main case, so the two parts came from different metal finishing lines.

    The light on my bike, a marginally newer and essentially identical Bolder LC40, remains all black. I have no idea what “Bolder” means in this context.

    Obviously, I must get out more …