Cool hobby

[millring]

[Village Idiot]

I'm not into that kind of stuff at all, but they guy running his wheels on that treadmill thingy reminds of my Dad running his 10 hp Johnson boat motor in the garage with the propeller in a galvanized trash can full of water every spring while he messed around with it. It occurs to me now, realizing that he was much younger than I am now, that it must have taken some Herculean strength to haul that 50 gallon water-filled can out of the garage to dump it. Maybe he should have set it up in the driveway instead of the back of the garage.

[RickW]

Pretty cool. One of my bosses races RC cars, but I thought they were electric. Pretty cool to have a functioning internal combustion engine that small.

[fauxmaha]

My brother in law works with a guy who is into this stuff. From miniature gas powered engines to rolling scale model steam locomotives, they make it all. 

[xyrn]

There's a ton of guys into this stuff:
www.homemodelenginemachinist.com/

They even do group projects where one guy will make ten pistons, another will make ten heads, and so on and at the completion each participant ends up with a functioning model.

Most of the members are retired machinists, engineers, draftsman and other reeeeeally detailoriented folks with tools, time and money.

It's fascinating to look through the build archives, there's some ridiculously intricate and beautiful machines on display.

[Village Idiot]

Our retired neighbor when we lived in town worked in a factory all his life. He was a tool and die man, and when the manufacturers wanted something, they'd come to him and his ilk and say something like "we want this to fasten to this and to spin like this", and it was their onus to figure it out. What a great and interesting job for someone with that kind of mechanical aptitude, and I wonder how many well-paying jobs are out there like that anymore for someone with an eighth grade education.

[mnhermit]

Todd I love that you used 'onus' that way. you erudite s.o.b.

[billhammond]

Aug 31, 2015 21:42:10 GMT -5 Village Idiot said:

It occurs to me now, realizing that he was much younger than I am now, that it must have taken some Herculean strength to haul that 50 gallon water-filled can out of the garage to dump it. Maybe he should have set it up in the driveway instead of the back of the garage.

Maybe he just stuck a hose in the barrel and siphoned the water out.

[Village Idiot]

You know I never thought of that. Mechanical aptitude was never my forte.

[Dub]

I've never seen a galvanized trash container that would hold 50 gal. Most are around 30 gal. Not saying they don't exist, just don't see them much.

On the other hand, 55 gal. drums are common but they aren't galvanized. I used to move 55 gal. drums of paint and solvent around by myself without a two-wheeler when I was in my 20s working at a Ford assembly plant. Once you have the "nack" it's not hard. I've seen drivers back up to the dock with a load of paint drums stacked two high. Some of those guys could unload the whole trailer entirely by hand. They could spin the top barrels down so when they hit the floor they didn't break. Then they'd tip them slightly and roll them on edge using one hand on the top as a pivot. I never got that good at it but I used to wrestle them around by hand quite a bit.

[Doug]

What Mark said about 55 gal drums.  I moved a lot of drums of tit dip (dairy stuff) when I sold drugs (vet drugs).  Not a big deal and I was in my 40s.  The two high ones I'd move down to the 30 gal drums and then down to the 15 gal ones before dropping them to the floor. Most of the time I'd stack 15s on top of 55s and 30s and I could lift those down.