MYSTERY OBJECTS

[Stanley]

Kev was getting close but Gloria clinched it. Exactly right, caulking tools which were used with all sorts of materials, lead for pipes, graphited asbestos for steam engine glands and Oakum for ships seams.
That didn't survive long. Try this!



What can you tell me about this flagpole?

[Stanley]

Hello.......?

[Gloria]

It’s outside a football stadium?

[Cathy]

It’s Not the one in the side street with the strange flag

[Wendyf]

Originally the mast from a boat?

[plaques]

Part of the Trafford Park Manchester Ship Canal refurbishment scheme.

[Stanley]

Bugger! Wendy is very close but not there yet. There's a lot more to it than that. Worry at it a bit more. And yes, it's at a football stadium.

[Gloria]

Anfield, and it comes from The Great Eastern.

[Stanley]

Curses!! Dead right, it's a topmast off the ship which was scrapped on the foreshore in Liverpool.
Now Gloria, find the next one!

[plaques]

Bugger Gloria got there before me. It was Wendy who put me on to it. Then for some reason 'The Cop' ran through my mind. The rest is history.

[Gloria]

How was this produced, it is in hardened tool steel. Upside down, but if you click on they right themselves.

4C2BEEFD-023E-4FB3-86BC-077CD3022A11.jpeg

98A40580-3120-4E72-B5D9-B25C2BB61CC4.jpeg

[PanBiker]

CNC machined?

[Gloria]

Loosely speaking it is, but only very loosely speaking, more info needed.

[plaques]

I've seen laser beams cut sheet metal but never this thickness. So I would say its a water jet cutter with a very fine jet and some fine carborundum as the cutting media.

[Gloria]

No.

[plaques]

Ok then, drill a fine starter hole, thread a tungsten wire through it and use spark erosion sat in a bath of paraffin.

[Stanley]

Plasma cutter?

[Gloria]

Ok then, drill a fine starter hole, thread a tungsten wire through it and use spark erosion sat in a bath of paraffin.

Getting warm, but not there yet.

[Gloria]

Plasma cutter?

Way off Stanley.

[chinatyke]

Laser cutter?

[Gloria]

Laser cutter?

Nope. This has got you all thinking.

[PanBiker]

Right, it's 3D printed then I reckon?

[Gloria]

Right, it's 3D printed then I reckon?

Nope

[Gloria]

Well you’ve got near, but not quite there.
This is one of two test pieces that were used to evaluate the merits of adgie and Mitsubishi wire eroding machines. It was constructed from two separate pieces and adgie, the Swiss machine, won the battle.

[Tripps]

Well that's all news to me. I've just googled and watched a demo - it still looks impossible.

It seems counter intuitive to have electrical sparks in a water bath - though it reminded me that I thought the same when I first saw a tank of de ionised water used as a dummy load to test a large generator.

Question now is can Stanley get one into his kitchen?