Mankind has been making tools and gadgets from metals for millennia. The discovery of copper and tin ushered in the Bronze Age about 5,000 years ago, and new metal tools swept aside stone tools in a hurry. Iron and steel have been used widely for about 3,000 years, but these days it appears that polymers and plastics are taking over. Nearly everything seems to be made from a material with a weird name like neoprene, polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene, polyethylene, polypropylene, polyacrylonitrile, or polyvinyl butyral. (more...)
Archive for the ‘Fun Stuff’ Category
Electric motorcycles? Yes please!
February 14th, 2011
By: Eric Lundin
By: Eric Lundin
In my previous blog entry, I made some comparisons between several gasoline-powered and alternative-fuel vehicles: Two passenger cars (a Toyota Prius® and a Toyota Camry®), two exotic sports cars (a Tesla Roadster Sport and a Lotus Evora), and two motorcycles (a model S from Zero Motorcycles and a traditional Harley-Davidson®). The Prius and the Roadster Sport are practical and very fast, respectively, and are comparable in performance and price to their gasoline-only counterparts, so it’s clear that we have low-carbon-footprint choices in automobiles these days. However, regarding the electric Zero model S, the technology has a long way to go; it has a top speed of 67 MPH and a range of 50 miles. (more...)
Let It Grow!
December 15th, 2010
By: Vicki Bell
By: Vicki Bell
If you’re a regular reader of The Fabricator Blog, you may know what's coming. It's that time of the year when I parody a holiday tune to reflect the times, or as my mother would say, "murderize" the song. She always remarked on singers taking a standard and covering it poorly as "murderizing" it. Well, Mother, I'm guilty as charged. Probably should be on death row.
Before launching into new lyrics for the song "Let It Snow" — thanks for the inspiration, Avon and Joe! — I'd like to share some relatively positive statistics from yesterday's "Fabricating Update" e-newsletter. (more...)
Party hearty or hardly party?
December 9th, 2010
By: Vicki Bell
By: Vicki Bell
Last week global outplacement and business coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported the results of its 2010 Holiday Party Survey. The findings indicate that as a growing number of companies benefit from a slowly improving economy, there are indications that workplace holiday parties are starting to make a comeback. However, with the bitter taste of cost-cutting measures still fresh in employees' minds, some companies appear to be keeping festivities relatively subdued. (more...)
Time to get back to work: Let's talk comics
November 19th, 2010
By: Dan Davis
By: Dan Davis
When EuroBLECH organizers decide to have their European sheet metal tradeshow the last week in October and FABTECH holds its show in the first week of November, you have a pretty good idea of what I've been up to. It hasn't been blogging, regrettably.
My co-workers have provided nice summaries of FABTECH from psychological and technological points of view. I don't have much to add with the exception that, with 22,000 visitors, Atlanta appears to be an excellent host location for FABTECH every four years.
For a summary of EuroBLECH, stay tuned for the December 2010 issue of The FABRICATOR. We'll just say "fiber lasers" and "bending automation" and leave it at that for now.
For the first blog in a while, I wanted to talk about something serious: comic books. Actually, it's a graphic novel from science fiction writer David Brin, assisted by writer Jason Land and artist Jan Feindt. Tinkerers tells the story of Danny Nakamura sometime in the near future as he looks for answers as to why the U.S. doesn't make "stuff" anymore. (more...)
What I did on my vacation to Detroit
May 26th, 2010
By: Dan Davis
By: Dan Davis
I took a day trip to Detroit last week, and I have no joke about it. I actually enjoyed my time in the Motor City.
Whereas others like to use Detroit as the poster child for what's wrong with big-city politics, the U.S. automotive industry, and public education, I see the city as one that may be down, but has the potential to rise up. Commercial high-rise buildings may be empty, but they remain standing, ready to be redesigned and reused. Other abandoned structures can be razed, creating a blank canvass on which city planners can draw up a new future. (more...)
The green fields of America
March 17th, 2010
By: Vicki Bell
By: Vicki Bell
As I write this, it's March 17 -- St. Patrick's Day - - and as a member of the Irish diaspora, I'm wearing green and playing the CD Murphy's Irish Pub as I work. This is the one day of the year that I immerse myself in my ancestry.
I’m an American first and foremost, but who I am as an individual stems largely from my Irish ancestors, who emigrated to the U.S. from Ireland in the 1700s. They left Ireland for many reasons, including survival during the Potato Famine. They saw not only an opportunity for survival, but also for prosperity in America, as evidenced by these lyrics from an Irish ballad, “The Green Fields of America”: (more...)
A big slice of humble pie
October 22nd, 2009
By: Eric Lundin
By: Eric Lundin
I was wrong. I said it. I admit it. Wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong. Totally wrong. No two ways about it. Wrong.
GM filed for bankruptcy June 1, and nearly every editor, reporter, and blogger seemed to want to jump on the bandwagon and jump all over GM's executives for decades of mismanagement. I didn't think that was fair, and I said so in a blog on June 4. Boy, was I wrong!
Making the most of metals
September 24th, 2009
By: Eric Lundin
By: Eric Lundin
Editors know that fab shop owners wear many (many, many) hats, and depending on the size of the shop, have to be equal parts accountant, purchasing agent, sales manager, marketing guru, safety officer, shop supervisor, process troubleshooter, training manager, human resources department, and maybe even chief cook and bottle washer. Heck, some probably even get to lend a hand on the shop floor once in a while, doing the one thing they probably love the most: running the machines that fabricate metal products. Taking a bigger look at the process sheds some light on a bigger process: The metal cycle. The process starts with a metal ore and ends when the finished item's service life comes to an end when a product is thrown away, a car is junked, or a building is torn down. But the material itself doesn't have to be banished to the scrap heap. Many of the alloys we use today can be recycled many times over, perhaps indefinitely.
A good week for tube
August 27th, 2009
By: Eric Lundin
By: Eric Lundin
It was a good week for tube, at least as far as I am concerned. I am always on the lookout for any chance to get out of the office and see tube or pipe applications, and I had two such opportunities this week.
First off, the local elementary school needed a new play area. The old one was sprawling, beautiful, and in great shape despite its age. It had slides, ladders, rings, ramps, stairs, towers, pathways, swings, and on and on. It had been built long before the Lundin family moved to the area, so it was a prominent feature, or perhaps THE prominent feature, that my children remember about the elementary school.
