sublime machinery

just about everything in this terrific fan-made video, but especially whatever that is at 0:39

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDUFaRiUwsk

http://helenography.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/dscf6602.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/1BFC00CECA8AEBC/orig.jpg

That blimp is ridiculous! Whose idea would it be to take a massive slow moving object full of men and vehicles to war?

http://i.imgur.com/lgCDCa0.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du9_Kn2y2VA#t=109

good account https://twitter.com/MachinePix

cool

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-bertha/

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--3SkYaW6P--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/1285811036231333733.gif

https://twitter.com/nbashaw/status/615021067338403840

good account caek

http://i.imgur.com/mTLFVur.png

lol, literally just coming here to post that too

so cool

i like that it's called 'troll a'

Those stilts are straight from a Chris Foss piece

i like that it's called 'troll a'

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, July 7, 2015 6:26 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

good place to set up a colony of noize dudes

http://gizmodo.com/these-are-the-sad-remains-of-the-soviet-space-shuttle-p-1710827956

http://i.imgur.com/MHtvdSk.jpg

crane lifting a crane lifting a crane lifting a crane

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--IHGBEqWq--/1375638805181310248.gif

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/a-giant-crane-lifting-a-huge-crane-lifting-a-big-crane-1722806551

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--j9HnbX26--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/1371242170630926116.jpg

Does this go here? "High Voltage Marx and Tesla Generators Research Facility":

https://img.rt.com/files/news/29/ad/00/00/tesla-coil-marx-generator.jpg

http://www.rt.com/news/170704-tesla-tower-lightning-russia/
http://www.rt.com/news/181748-tesla-marx-generator-lightning/

xp ha, I did think of that shortly after. Could do without the extra shopped panels though.

oh I only just noticed that, bah

http://i.imgur.com/UOXMc6X.gif

https://giant.gfycat.com/BaggyCostlyDrongo.gif

https://giant.gfycat.com/AdmirableHideousChafer.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-XlbUDPt7A

reminds me of bucket's observation in Murphy that the rocking chair is the only thing that gets faster and faster and faster and then stops. tho more terrifying. something essential about it made me think 'oh god, life'.

http://i.imgur.com/hkPZ5a1.gif

http://media.gizmodo.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/loczr2lukuqnouxaxq0w.gif

(look carefully and you'll notice that some of these gears are turning in the same direction as their neighbours...)

http://i.imgur.com/4MUVq4y.gif

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--AzVwHsci--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/bhn9yxqvs1aeybjhtzie.png

http://gizmodo.com/a-17-000-ton-oil-rig-ran-aground-on-a-beach-1785029783

*thumbs up*

that picture is amazing

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/08/20/atomic-light-akademgorodok-laboratories-scientists/

https://www.facebook.com/Machine1806/videos/398237297186905/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED

Brutal. Why didn't they just cast it to that shape in the first place though?

"Chinese steelworkers hate this one neat trick!"

yeah, like the anchor chain upthread it's a striking combination of sublime machinery and a surprising dependence on manual labour

Why didn't they just cast it to that shape in the first place though?

Two thoughts. China spent decades as a low-capitalized nation with massive amounts of manpower and a full employment policy, and there are probably still many remnants of that economy left in the hinterlands. It is also possible that the tensile strength of the metal (steel?) may be much higher when it is beaten into shape rather than cast. But I am not a metallurgist.

...

ime forgings normally have less surface porosity, finer grain structure, higher tensile strength, better fatigue life/strength, and greater ductility than castings

yup

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_hardening

y'all need to watch more Science Channel

What is it a wheel for?

Typical train wheels are cast as one piece but the load bearing bit, the tyre, is a band that is added later. I remember them showing a short piece about this on Blue Peter about 100 years ago. They heat it up to get it on and it contacts as it cools. Pic here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_wheel

That goes on to say that they sometimes don't use tyres any more. And one of those pictures suggests that the flange is part of the tyre.

garu g to thread

It's so funny that you posted that bc my dad at Christmas spent about 45 mins telling me about being in an open-face forging operation in the mid-80s before it went out of business, and how the steam power hammers were 3 stories tall -- one story underground and two above. And the shop had 6 of them. He remembered a lot of details and they made flanges much like the one in that video, by his description. Only without forklifts.

I thought blacksmiths shops were supposed to be dark so you could tell how hot the metal was by the color it glowed. (This was confirmed for me by an actual blacksmith last week.) But I suppose needs must.

The one detail that wasn't in the Chinese video is that my dad says the scale--the oxidized impurities that flake off after each hammer blow--has to be swept away or else it gets stamped back into the metal. So a guy with a broom would sweep the surface in a synchronized pattern between hammer blows but every time the hot metal would make his broom catch on fire, so he'd throw it into a bucket of water. And then again. And again. Etc.

It sounded very exciting, albeit noisy.

ha! wow

I correct myself, it's called open-die forging according to the internet, because there's no recessed shape that you're forcing it into. Instead the metal is taking whatever shape it will under the force of the hammer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forging#Open-die_drop_forging

Anyway he said it stopped being desirable when the Japanese (I think) invented a kind of steel that could be stamped out and have the same strength and grain characteristics that had been achieved by forging without all the mess and labor and, well, actual forging. So the operation was shuttered before the end of the '80s and all those men who had made their lifetimes' craft of that work were unemployable. And it will never come back.

Dinner conversation at my house is just riveting obv.