THINKING SMALL

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Need a drop of oil?

Sure you do. Everybody does, now & then.

Pocket-knife. Part of my Uniform, issued to me by the Navy in June of 1956. Good knife. The steel holds an edge. The blades pivot on either end. Keep the big blade 'knife-sharp,' the little blade 'razor-sharp.' (It has to do with the cross-sectional shape of the blade. Razor-sharp is a temporary thing; it dulls in a hurry; needs to be stropped back to sharpness. Knife-sharp isn't as sharp as a razor but it keeps it's edge longer. When it gets dull you sharpen it with a whetstone. Just a few strokes.

Oil a micrometer?!! Well... yeah, I guess so. After all, it's just a 40tpi thread inside a graduated barrel. But it doesn't need to be oiled very often; mebbe once every five years if you use it a lot.

Fan with Oilite bearings? Sure! Sez so, right there... little hole 'OIL.' And you are the Mechanic in Charge.

When it comes to lube-jobs we have a tendency to ignore the little jobs, like all those kitchen appliances you and your wife depend upon. But if you read the manuals you'll generally find some mention of lubrication, although many will want you to take it to a 'qualified repairman.' Which is you, by the way. Indeed, the main difference between a modern 'Lubricated for Life' partis that they make no provision for periodic lubrication. Most of today's cars are like that, with many key components being 'lubricated for life. But it turns out that their definition of 'life' can be as little as sixty-thousand miles, at which point you will be forced to buy & install a new part.

Kitchen drawers & cabinets? Yep. Tiny drop of oil every five years or so. Along with your home's door hinges, door knobs, latches, locks and so forth. But not always oil. Some call for a whiff of powdered graphite, like the door lock on your car or truck.

Sewing machine requires periodic maintenance, just like your car, boat or plane. And they'll usually tell you what oil to use.

Funny thing about oil: Provide something with a hole that sez 'OIL' and the odds are, it will get too much oil. The oil gets past the seals; gets into the motor which slings it all around. The oil collects fine-textured debris which eventually blocks the vents needed to allow the motor to cool properly. So they seal-up the oil holes, leaving you to go around, put your hand on the motor or gear-case to estimate the temperature. If you can put your hand on it, it doesn't need any oil. But if you can't touch it with your bare hand, then there's a good chance it needs to have it's lubrication replaced.'

Good motors, the sort of thing you find on ammo hoists and other military equipment, have very specific instructions with regard to lubrication. They spell out when the thing is to be dismantled and cleaned, what lubricants should be used and how much.

The point most often overlooked with regard to such lubrication chores is that the item to be lubricated must also be cleaned occasionally.

Another point often overlooked by the home mechanic is that selling light-grade oil in small quantities often inflates the price to over two hundred dollars per quart. No, that isn't a typo. See the half-ounce tube of Singer Sewing Machine oil? It's list price is $3.19.

This sort of thing reflects modern-day corporate thinking, in which every possible effort is made to screw the customer. Proof of this is seen in the first photo which includes a 4 ounce can of Singer Sewing Machine oil for thirty cents ( ie, $9.60 per quart ).

Your best defense against this sort of thing is to buy such lubricants in larger quantities, such as quarts or gallons and to provide your own dispenser... or to simply refill the regular dispenser, such as the cans shown in the top photo. WD-40 and kerosene are available in one and five gallon containers and a flit-gun provides all the atomizing I require. The same is true for light-weight oils which are usually available from distributors of hydraulic lifts and elevators.

The best example of this that I can think of is that I can think of involves my Zippo cigarette lighter, variously repaired (at no cost) by the Zippo company three times since 1958. Lighter fluid is naptha. Purchased by the gallon, is ( or rather, was, the last time I bought some ) about $3 per gallon while lighter fluid cost about $0.75 for a 4.5 oz can. That's about $21.00 per gallon. ( And the price has since gone outta sight ).

-R.S.Hoover

Cancer Report 04 -- Exercising -- Walking

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"You might want to increase your exercising," the physician said. It was the last thing he said as he left the examining room, a parting shot aimed neatly across my bow. Before I could locate a blunt object with which to belabor him about the head, the door was swinging closed and the glow of adulation was slowly oozing away. "He's sooo nice," she oozed, about the same time I discovered the ophthalmoscope in the top drawer the door was closed, my fate decided as my wife's magic fingers did their curly-whoopty-full-stop-Do, which in short-hand would be translated onto our account of the Visit to The Doctor's Office, every neuance of which was recorded not only by Mr. Gregg's Secret Writing but recorded on a chip the size of my thumbnail, which was good for a year or more of Visits. (Why the double-down & dirty? Because I can't spell Dexamethasone any better than Lisinoprille but my wife could, although I secretly suspect she looks them up in the PDR (Physician's Desk Reference... buy one; it'll change your world).

So there I am, doomed to an increase in my exercising. So... how much? How often? What type? And on and on and in inestimablity that would succumb to the guns of my wife's attack upon the physician's hapless assistant.

Which it does. I am doomed to twenty-five laps around the patio, into which I am wearing a discernible trail. I'm serious! My poor cancer afflicted body is literally wearing a groove into our patio!

...and something terribly wrong with the blogging software.... again. Not only will it NOT turn itself on at certain times, at others it fails to turn itself OFF, leaving you to write in Italics for the remainder of your days.

Ah, well...

See the priddy pitcher at the top of the page? Note the figure '104' on the counter? (Just tap the picture. It will fill the screen and you'll be able to read the numbers.) That is the DISTANCE of one trip around the patio. One hundred and four feet. Thirty-one point two six three Meters. Five trips per day equals 156.313 meters. That's more than a kilometer per week! (1.094 Km). In a month I will have traveled 7.658 kilometers.

That's 520 feet per day. I can already feel my knees starting to crumble. Five hundred and twenty feet per day is 3,640' per week... 2.75 MILES in a month!

Like the man said, it's the side-effects that gets you.

-R.S. Hoover
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I am now spending so much time in my patio that I've decided to give each of its districts a unique name. For example, the concrete portion between the sliding glass doors to the living room and the REAL door into the kitchen has been named Metropolis. It is this section of my patio from which I occasionally see a man removing his clothing in a telephone booth. The man then LEAVES his clothing IN the telephone booth, steps out of the booth, LEAPS INTO THE AIR and vanishes. But that isn't the part which is truly fantastic (and why I know it can't be real.) You see, his pile of clothing, including his wallet and a pair of heavy, horn-rimmed spectacles, REMAINS in the phone booth and is NEVER PILFERED!!!

Having a fellow leap into the air wearing some kind of costume, did not alarm me. After all, this is Southern California. Mexico is little more than a border away. Masked and caped crusaders are a common sight in Mexico. Indeed, they have become virtually a national tradition. Having a few of them leak across the border should come as no surprise, just as having them vanish into the sky brings only a shrug. (Here, I'll put one in ) There. Now you know how to do it when you come to write your next Radio Play. Of course, no one will bother to read them. So send them to more radio stations. Get someone to play the role of your Announcer and record them yourself! Now you can offer them to the SAME radio stations which rejected them. And to Colleges, hospitals, banks and so forth. Just keep in mind that dashing adventure heros in skin-tight costumes are my particular genre!


Stay tuned as our intrepid (but Cancer-prone) Explorer leaves civilization behind as he plunges into the seamy bowels of the City.
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SPEED-TRAP

There is one section of our patio that, quite frankly has me buffaloed. After making a sharp turn around a pile of flag stones, my path -- when traveling west-ward -- takes a sudden downward dip, resulting in an abrupt and completely uncontrollable, increase in my speed. So there I am, plodding along, thinking more about getting there than in how fast I can, when I hit the downgrade and come into a maze of plants, some planted for medicinal reasons such as the bed of aloe vera when this little dork on a hot-rod bike pops out of the bushes, hits the buzzer and goes into the: "May I see your license and registration... please" with everything but an out-right giggle on the please. Busted. Doing 45 in a 35. And in my own backyard, fer crysakes!

So I pass over the documents and he writes me out the ticket and in a month 0r so I'll turn up in court but he won't. And they'll ask for a continuation and I'll say it works both ways, your honor, and if it's one of the non-political judges he/she'll say No way, Jose, slam the hammer down and dismiss the charges, telling me to cool it, even if it is my own backyard, what with the grand-kids and so on, and I'll say, Yessir/Ma'am/Whatever, an' I go back home just knowing that sucker is going to be waiting for me again and all because the Doctor said I might want to get a bit more exercise... MIGHT WANT, as in me having something to do with it, instead of a Fiat from On High that sez I gotta start pumping iron an' hittin' the bricks as if I was going to fall apart next Thursday at three o'clock.

Wanna see some PROOF? Huh? You wanna? Well, THERE'S your proof! Lookit that sucker all tucked up outta sight behind that boulder in all them bushes there, just WAITING for me to come down that grade, brakes a'smoking an' me digging in with both canes an' ain't no WAY I can slow that sucker down before I hit the flats there by the patio gate!

-R.S.Hoover
-Monday 26 Jan 2009

PS -- Doctors! Sheez!
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2 February 2009

I'm walking. It is 0750. My back hurts a little. Not much, just a little bit but it's in a place where bad things have happened. So I decide to not walk as far as I'd planned.

Coffee is good. Steaming slowly in the bright sunlight, bent to the south by a gentle north breeze. Sure enough, when I flex my back the Bad Place starts sending off rockets. It's Science Fiction Time, boys & girls. Bob Heinlein has come to play hockey on my back; down low, where the radiation was focused. I'm all flat down there, the muscles have turned to string. It is difficult to sit down and when I finally make it, I wish I hadn't because it hurts so much I want to stand up again. NEED to stand up again. But that will hurt too. I stand up. Life's little messages.

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Thirteen times around the Patio Course. A quarter of a mile. Now I have other hurts to mask the back pain.

My baby sister has visited. She lives five hundred miles away. It was an expensive visit.

Baby sister. Big smiley there because she is now in her fifties. But she will always be my baby sister.

When I was a Seaman in the Navy -- a lowly E3 earning an amount so small you'd laugh -- I used to buy her little gifts, send them to her, imagining her delight. I was far away. The gifts were a link, or so I hoped. Years later I learned she had not received most of them. Even so, the memories are strong.

On this visit she returns the favor, giving me a Hot-Rod Walker. Brand name: Hugo. Model: Elite. It has brakes that lock the wheels and a padded seat, allowing me to sit down when my legs start doing that jerky-twitchy thing. There are zippered compartments and perhaps a Secret Decoder Ring. And I didn't even have to send in any box tops.

My legs are sore. They will be sorer before the day is done. And my arms, too. Pumping Iron. Joke, because the weights weigh only 5 pounds. FIVE MEASLY POUNDS! I used to press over 300 pounds, run a quick five laps, all that at lunch time; just a quick little work-out to keep myself in shape. And did. Until along comes a Tumor.

Multiple Myeloma. I'd like to exchange messages with other MM patients. Toward that end I've conducted numerous searches of the Internet. Lots of MM information out there, as well as lots of MM Organizations passing out information with one hand whilst asking for money with the other. But no MM patients. Lots of 'care-givers' but so far, nothing from the 'care-receivers.'

Hello? Is anyone there?
veeduber@isp.com
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MODIFIED CYLINDER HEAD

The image to your left will give you some idea of the direction I'm now taking in my effort to find a more thermally efficient cylinder head.

What I have done is to move the existing exhaust: ports from their traditional location on the sides of the engine to a location beneath the engine.


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I've posted a bit more information on the rah GROUP but if you have questions they should probably be posted here.

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Picture of my smelter is posted to the right.

If you've not done any casting it is a handy skill, well worth your time to investigate.


-Bob Hoover

Flock of Eagles

Steve Bennett, Great Plains Aircraft Parts Company, and Robert S. Hoover, at Vista, California on Sunday, 18 January 2009, proving once again that the more you fly, the handsomer you become.
-R.S.Hoover

GOOD NEWS ! ( Cancer )

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Big Day at the doctor shop. No sign of Anemia at all. Should be some. Nada. Cancer is still there but... Lookit those numbers! Proteins used to track the Beast are there but... Lookit those numbers!!

Doctor is shaking my hand, looking at me, strong, right in my face. He is happy. He often isn't. Today he is. He's showing me the Numbers.

They've got computers all over the doc-shops nowadays. Paper too but not a lot. FAX, voice-mail your-computer-talking-to-my-computer sorta thing. Today he's got some paper and he's really happy about what's on it. 'No anemia at all,' and that's got him more excited than I've ever seen him. (Anemia is an excess of white blood cells. With Multiple Myeloma, the kinda cancer I've got, the physician likes to keep track of the white cells, which are usually elevated. If the count is not elevated, it's good news.) And I'm looking good, according to this physician, who I haven't seen in about a month, although I've seen a couple of his running-mates, including one who comes in just then. "Isn't he looking good?" and it stops him for an eye-blink. "Hey! You are really looking good," sez the second doctor, who I've seen just recently. The first doctor passes him the score-card from the blood-lab with a cheery: "Lookit this!" and he does the same song & dance routine. "Wow!" Now they're both shaking my hand. I mean, taking turns, but you get the idea.

My wife plays the beamish bride through all this, since my looking good is mostly her fault. She is the Commander-in-Chief of the pill bottle; she causes things to ring or blink or buzz, telling me it is time to... do something. If I need a pill, it is there, without failure or recourse. She is the one who makes the runs to the pharmacy. Her hand may rock the cradle but it also lights the lamp, leads the way and provides the accountancy that is the secret core of modern-day medicine.

Before you start ringing the bells, the cancer is still there; it's still generating the protein tags which tells the physicians it is not only there but what it is doing... getting better, getting worse, staying the same and so on.

Mine's getting better. And appears to be shrinking. And because of it, I'm looking good! (Okay, okay... but everyone else is saying it.)

Then we get into the Real Work, the four of us, adjusting the medication regime with regard not only to what I'm taking but how much. Most of this is aimed directly at the cancerous cells but there are other drugs needed to overcome my body's reaction to the anti-cancer drugs, a lot of which are toxic in the normal sense. But when you start looking good it means they can adjust the brew, leaving out Eye of Newt this week, mebbe jacking up Toe of Frog. How's my edima? Has the swelling gone down? The pain... dizziness... It's the pre-flight check-list for a 767 and they are its crew, ticking off the items one by one, stopping now and then for additional information; When did that start? How much? How long? Any of this? How are you sleeping? My weight (starting to come up), my exercises (still at it). But man, you are really looking good!

Bottom Line: I've turned a corner of some kind. There is no cure for Multiple Myeloma but they have managed to reduce it's impact on my system and the best proof of that is me, because... you guessed it: I am looking good!

Okay, so it sounds a little silly. Maybe it was. But it was a good kind of silliness. It isn't remission but neither is it the deadly stall-turn that I've been flying for the past six months. We've got it out of the spin. We are back in control.

A few small changes in the medication. New dates for future appointments, now safe to schedule them months in advance rather than days.

For the family and me the fight is still on a daily basis. There are no miracles but we are seeing real progress, the product of constant attention to a host of details.

When we are back home, the chores done, mail collected, there's a moment for reflection. Our team is working out. And I'm looking good! :-)

-R.S.Hoover

Casting Call!

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Hello to all, including those of you who have mentioned my blog is difficult for them to read due to the small size of the print. Of course, in their next breath they admit there's nothing I can do about it because it is just as difficult for them to read everyone else's blog as well, meaning the problem is in the font and if I used a larger font, my articles would probably become too large to manage... or something.


But I appreciate the problem and while going to a LARGER FONT, as I have done here, is not much of a solution, it should serve to show you that I really do read all that mail... and that I really do try to do something about it.


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This article happens to be about casting parts. That's right; melting some metal (Aluminum in this case) and using the pot of molten Aluminum to CAST some NEW parts (cylinder heads, in this case). Which I can probably do. But I am such a klutz when it comes to this BLOG, you will be lucky if you can read the thing at ALL, regardless of the size of the print.

So here come some DRAWINGS that have been converted to ILLUSTRATIONS, which means they are virtually useless for doing anything more than giving you a very rough idea of what's involved.

Later on, as I progress through the process, you MAY get some idea of HOW it is done but right now the best I can do is to offer you some illustrations.

The first illustration is a collection of lines and circles that represent (to ME ) the head of a Volkswagen engine. This particular head was introduced about 1965 and the KEY DIMENSIONS of this head have remained the same right up to the last head Volkswagen produced... ANYWHERE and for any size of engine. That should offer you a hint with regard to the problems faced by the engine-builder when trying to produce more POWER from a VW engine.

The fact is, the HEADS are the critical factor with ANY air-cooled engine, in that so long as the heads remain unchanged with regard to certain critical dimensions, the maximum OUTPUT of an engine fitted with those heads will ALSO remain unchanged.

So what are those critical dimensions? They are the dimensions of the FINS. It is the FINS, especially those in close conjunction with the EXHAUST VALVE which dictate the maximum amount of HEAT that can be coupled to the ATMOSPHERE. It is this coupling or transfer that determines how HOT the heads can get. If you have too LITTLE fin AREA, the cast aluminum will literally start to crumble. Yes, CRUMBLE rather than MELT. That's because aluminum is what's know as a 'white-short' metal (as are most other non-ferrous metals ). With ferrous metals, such as iron or steel, as the metal gets hot, glowing red and then yellow and finally an incandescent WHITE... it still retains a good bit of its strength.

But Aluminum doesn't do that. When it enters it's 'plastic' range -- where the farrier would commence to shape the bar into a horseshoe by pounding upon the thing with a hammer -- if it is subjected to any amount of stress... such as HAMMERING, 'white-short' metals will literally CRUMBLE like a cube of sugar. This is what limits our maximum Cylinder Head Temperature to relatively low values... about 450 degrees F. for a casting and about 550 for a forging.

So where does this heat come from? It is a product of COMBUSTION. If you want the engine to produce any POWER it's going to have to produce one hell of a lot of HEAT. In fact, for every horsepower's-worth of TORQUE you'll see at the crankshaft, you will also see about THREE HORSEPOWER'S-WORTH of WASTE HEAT in the exhaust, and in the jugs, and in the oil and so on and on and on until you go a little crazy trying to deal with the waste heat.

The most elegant way to deal with WASTE-HEAT is to simply pass it on to the ATMOSPHERE -- to let your forward velocity force the AIR through the FINS on our heads and simply blow the heat away!

Which is what I'm trying to do here.

But it turns out to be a difficult task. There is a finite limit to your fins. Pump too much heat into them and they will crack or bend or do any of a dozen other things. Those are the problems I must overcome. So wish me luck, if you've got any to spare.

-R.S.Hoover

How Big is a Millimeter

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Not very.

There are 25.4mm to 1 inch. And when you're dealing with your heads you're interested in the VOLUME of those millimeters which means you're dealing with CENTImeters. So here's one way to get a feel for them. See the tape measure? See the markings? Notice that this particular tape measure give you both inches and millimeters. Very handy!

If you'll click on the image it will fill your screen, flop off the edge of the desk and run all over the floor. Honest! But the larger image will give you a chance to evaluate the size of a CENTIMETER, which what you'll be working with when you cc your heads.
__R. S. Hoover