The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 02: A Comma (is a Restful Pause)

TxRad said:

They were produced and used on both coasts of the USA during WWII. There was a company that made sailboats from a fiberglass reinforced cement. I can't remember the name of the company but they may still be in business.

Click to expand...

There was (probably still is) a competition among engineering schools to make and then race concrete canoes.

NotWise said:

There was (probably still is) a competition among engineering schools to make and then race concrete canoes.

Click to expand...

Now you've done it! My brain is working on ways of thin wall casting concrete with fiberglass reinforcement and then there is the sealing problem.

Time out for more coffee. Brain lube.

TxRad said:

Now you've done it! My brain is working on ways of thin wall casting concrete with fiberglass reinforcement and then there is the sealing problem.

Time out for more coffee. Brain lube.

Click to expand...

The seacrete (ferro-concrete) hulls were moulded as a single piece. If necessary, holes for propeller shaft and cooling water inlet/outlet were either part of the moulding process or drilled later.

https://encrypted-tbn0.***********/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSiius35NHunlkPBczK0MSt7JAlHeg_SrwPuksPDCwxyv38pkbv





Coffee. Rum. That 19-foot canoe. What more could I desire?

Hypoxia said:

Coffee. Rum. That 19-foot canoe. What more could I desire?

Click to expand...

A mug and a paddle?

NotWise said:

Damn the torpedos. right?

Click to expand...

Well, he said if we ever get that far, I can steer when we're about two hundred miles out to sea and the nav stuff says there's nothing nearby I can hit. Apparently autopilots work fairly well.

Been reading up on ferro-cement and it seems a bit of a niche for sure. Steel. I know from personal experience steel can be really tough. Chunks of concrete hammered of the concrete retaining wall that I hit tough. Works for me, but I knows nutting ... nutting I tells you. I just read the websites. I am going to let my SO run with this in his dreams!

Now here'sa couple of photos of a steel Diesel Duck that was tied up at a dock on a tributary of the Pearl River when a typhoon passed through. The dock was destroyed. After the storm destroyed the dock the boat hung on with a large stern anchor in the river attached. This allowed her heavily reinforced bow, 2" round bar cut-water with concrete backing to repeatedly smash into the cement and rock seawall.


Here is the damage to the seawall caused by the boat.


This photo was taken after the boat was removed from the water for re-fairing and painting. As you can see the paint and epoxy fairing compound was ground away with the pounding. but the steel hull remains intact and un-dented.

Nuff said. There;s another photo of one of these where it was pounded on a reef in the Philippines for a few days. They pulled it off and touched up the paint. Sounds like my kind of boat

oggbashan said:

One boat builder on the Norfolk Broads in the UK made ferro-concrete hulls for their hire cruisers. I think they were intended for us by those navigating the Broads for the first time handling any craft at all.

They are sturdy and have survived years of misuse.

http://www.broads.org.uk/wiki/index.php5?title=Style_Details&style=Magc

Click to expand...

My little canal cruiser was about the same size. The 10hp Honda outboard managed to drive it all over the place with few problems (and it charged the battery, too).

ChloeTzang said:

Well, he said if we ever get that far, I can steer when we're about two hundred miles out to sea and the nav stuff says there's nothing nearby I can hit. Apparently autopilots work fairly well.

Been reading up on ferro-cement and it seems a bit of a niche for sure. Steel. I know from personal experience steel can be really tough. Chunks of concrete hammered of the concrete retaining wall that I hit tough. Works for me, but I knows nutting ... nutting I tells you. I just read the websites. I am going to let my SO run with this in his dreams!

.

Nuff said. There;s another photo of one of these where it was pounded on a reef in the Philippines for a few days. They pulled it off and touched up the paint. Sounds like my kind of boat

Click to expand...

I noticed the bow-thruster; they are a great help in time of trouble.
Any coffee left please?

Handley_Page said:

I noticed the bow-thruster; they are a great help in time of trouble.

Any coffee left please?

Click to expand...

Coffee? Just made a fresh pot. I'll pour it thru the window, just tip your monitor up so it comes out at your end and into the cup (that upgrade to the new MS Coffee-teleporter software worked....)

Boats? This is apparently what he has in mind. And hey, he caught me by surprise with this one but why not. I'd love to do something like this! Just don't ask me to take the controls anywhere near anything breakable!!!



Although if we're dreaming, this one would do me.

Handley_Page said:

My little canal cruiser was about the same size. The 10hp Honda outboard managed to drive it all over the place with few problems (and it charged the battery, too).

...

Click to expand...

Many decades ago, before children and grandchildren, my wife and I hired a Broads Cruiser at short notice because she was able to take a holiday when she thought she couldn't.

It was a very old boat but had originally been privately owned, not a hire cruiser. We had trouble on the first day. The engine was regulated to run so slowly that it wasn't charging the battery or producing enough electricity for the ignition. The battery went flat and we coasted to a halt.

The boatyard came out with a charged battery and adjusted the engine regulator. Or they said they had. What they had done was take the regulator off.

Later that week we wanted to cross Breydon Water and to go North through Great Yarmouth. But the unregulated engine had taken us across Breydon Water faster than we had calculated. We reached Great Yarmouth as the tide was still flowing out at full pace and cruisers were coming down with the tide.

I opened the throttle to full and charged upstream. Even against the tide we were doing five knots. The engine had come from a large Daimler car, a 4.5 litre (275 cu) straight six. As the tide slowed we were going faster and faster. The throttle cable had jammed open. My wife took the wheel while I lifted the engine cover and tried to free the cable. Eventually I had to detach it from the carburettor linkage and control the engine speed by hand while my wife searched for somewhere to moor. We managed to get all the way to the boatyard. We brewed a pot of tea while the mechanic made up a new throttle cable.

The rest of the cruise was uneventful...

Dark roast coffee with eggnog for creamer and Miracle on 34th Street today. Finished a major re-write on a story for a contest yesterday so I'm pleased. Still editing to do but I have a few days yet. Even if it never wins or sells, I'm going to give a copy to a few people for Christmas.

This is more the sort of "yacht" that works around here.

NotWise said:

This is more the sort of "yacht" that works around here.

Click to expand...

I had an opportunity to try something very similar on ice many moons ago but changed my mind when the word brakes never came up in the orientation class.

Lots of writing done today and a little editing. Chicken fried steak for supper and now a big mug of hot chocolate to complete the coma installation.

TxRad said:

I had an opportunity to try something very similar on ice many moons ago but changed my mind when the word brakes never came up in the orientation class.

Click to expand...

So, you put brakes in your boats?

NotWise said:

So, you put brakes in your boats?

Click to expand...

In a way, yes.Anyway, most of my boats don't go as insanely fast as iceboats go. Not to mention the flying meat cleavers if there is an accident.

Fresh coffee for the night crew. Have at it.

Enough of this 'boat' stuff. Did we possess such here in our mountain hamlet, we'd have to wheel it over too many mountain miles to the nearest artificial bodies of water, or much further up to Lake Tahoe. Just so we're exposed to the elements, which we can do in our own meadow with a lawn sprinkler.

No, I'm dreaming of cars. Steam-powered cars.

What's a steam engine? The basic structure has 4 parts: 1) a pump to squirt cool water to 2) the heater (boiler or flash tubes) whose steam drives 3) the motor (pistons or turbine) whose exhaust goes to 4) the condenser whose liquid output is recirculated by 1) the pump.

Most of the world's electric power is produced by big steam turbines. But I digress.

Production Stanley Steamers of 111 years back had engines of just 15 moving parts. They produced little horsepower but the YUUGE torque could spin tires off wheels and out-accelerate everything else. A slightly modded Stanley with a canoe body (really!) set the land speed record 111 years ago, a record that stood for 3 years, and a steam record that held for a century more.

T.Roosevelt and W.H.Taft loved their White steamers. The Secret Service could convoy behind the presidential horse-wagon in fast-accelerating silence.

Automotive steam engines evolved even after cheap petrol and Ford's mass-production killed them economically. Steamers are nearly silent, burn almost anything, emit almost zero pollutants, and need no transmission because full torque at all speeds. Flash-tubes allow no boiler explosions. And Advanced Steam technology can eliminate flames with hot fuel cells. White and Doble engines could start from cold in 30 seconds. Newer designs are immediate.

My dream (which remains a fantasy because clumsy) is a VW Karmann Ghia steamer convertable with a sporty rear wing holding the condenser. More than a few VW boxer engines have been converted to Serpollet-type steam motors. I'd keep the transmission because going backwards or VERY slow or fast is useful; but mostly it'd stay in 2nd gear.

Okay, so steam mills can and do go into boats, too. Quiet boats.

Meanwhile, I'll have another cardiologist experience in a few days. Maybe I'll be permitted coffee afterwards. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee.

Did I mention coffee?

ChloeTzang said:

Coffee? Just made a fresh pot. I'll pour it thru the window, just tip your monitor up so it comes out at your end and into the cup (that upgrade to the new MS Coffee-teleporter software worked....)
]

Click to expand...

Well, Chloe, apart from a few spots under the monitor, the Coffee-teleporter seemed to work. I have to report that the coffee did not travel well and has very little 'taste'. But many thanks for the trial. I fear we may have to try again - soon.

Hypoxia said:

Enough of this 'boat' stuff. Did we possess such here in our mountain hamlet, we'd have to wheel it over too many mountain miles to the nearest artificial bodies of water, or much further up to Lake Tahoe. Just so we're exposed to the elements, which we can do in our own meadow with a lawn sprinkler.

No, I'm dreaming of cars. Steam-powered cars.

What's a steam engine? The basic structure has 4 parts: 1) a pump to squirt cool water to 2) the heater (boiler or flash tubes) whose steam drives 3) the motor (pistons or turbine) whose exhaust goes to 4) the condenser whose liquid output is recirculated by 1) the pump.

Did I mention coffee?

Click to expand...

Apart from small [table-top] steram or full-bore railway type things, I have nil experience with steam, although I see in the Press that several makers are doing serious work on it [I cannot see the petrol companies liking that one].

What is it with your cardio people ? No coffee [even de-caff ?]
Fingers Crossed.

And now for some coffee, lookng at the snow-covered [Xmas card for real] landscape.

Handley_Page said:

Apart from small [table-top] steram or full-bore railway type things, I have nil experience with steam, although I see in the Press that several makers are doing serious work on it [I cannot see the petrol companies liking that one].

Click to expand...

See Wikipedia on steam cars and follow the links. And gas-fired steam may be the salvation of Big Petro after most transport goes electric. Steam engines can burn anything flammable; petrol producers will be able to supply the lowest grade of fuel, eliminating many costly and messy refineries, and keeping fuel stations in business.

What is it with your cardio people ? No coffee [even de-caff ?]
Fingers Crossed.

Click to expand...

Orders, not yet rescinded, say no coffee, decaf, non-herbal tea, cocoa, alcohol, none of that CNS-stimulant fun stuff. Following medical orders seems prudent, yes?

And now for some coffee, lookng at the snow-covered [Xmas card for real] landscape.

Click to expand...

We (generally) could definitely use snow here. We (specifically) could use a backup generator here. And I could use some coffee in the morning. Maybe I need a placard: WILL FUCK FOR COFFEE. No, that probably won't work. Oy.

Steam cars?

A few years ago I came across some pristine advertising booklets for a steam car made in North West Kent about 1910. There was a set of six booklets, obviously unused.

I did some research and eventually contacted the National Motor Museum at Beauleigh. They had more information than my research had discovered. Only six cars had been made. Five of them caught fire and were destroyed on their test runs from the workshop where they were built. The sixth, tested on a windless day, managed to drive three miles very slowly before catching fire.

The main design flaw? The steam boiler was heated by an external heat source - an array of wick-fed flames underneath. There was no protection for the flames when the car started moving. The flames would have tilted backwards and instead of heating the boiler would have heated the fuel tank. The second flaw? The flames were petrol fed. The combination of wick and petrol caused a flashover. But as soon as the tank was being heated it would have exploded as a fuel/air bomb. That didn't happen because the cars destroyed themselves by fire before that point.

I think the designers should have drunk more coffee when they were considering the fuel source. They went back to making bicycles.

There's a good few "steampunk" sf novels where steam power plays a big part. It's a lovely variation on technology and it'd be great to see a comeback. Those old Stanley Steamers were marvellous pieces of technology. They made it everywhere.

Back in the day, were many many more steamcars than gas-engine autos, and zillions of steamcar makers, mostly in USA but Europe and elsewhere too. Not all were competent, hey? Still, most were better than the Turbonique gas-turbine dragster engines of the 1960s, which tended to explode fatally.

I slightly corrected my first steamcar post above. VW boxer engines can be converted to Serpollet-type motors, not Stanley-type. Serpollet invented the flash tubes that made fast steam possible. BTW the identical-twin Stanley brothers, oddly unpleasant folks, were connected to the hotel in the Kubrick's THE SHINING. They invented the airbrush, photographic processes, and some sort of violin. Their life stories are worth reading.

I just found this fascinating article (from SteamCar.Net) that ties the Stanleys with boats: The World's Fastest Canoe. The Land Speed Record car the Stanley Rocket was a motorized canoe. This was back when production canoes were pretty high-tech, and were also seen as immoral devices wherein lovers could paddle to secluded nooks to fuck. The Rocket was thus a flying fuckmobile. Oy.
_____

Okay, I'll admit it. I attempt to distract myself from reality with rants here on 'ukuleles and steamcars etc. My cardiac shit is worrisome. Poking inside my eyeballs with tools and lasers is bad enough. Mucking about with my heart is on another level. Sure, it's likely safe and needed. My subconscious is not reassured. I try to lead a low-stress life. Ha.

So I'll blather on here about mechanical toys, and about skullduggery on the General and Politics boards, and posting rude pictures, etc. I'm not in denial. I'm probably in avoidance. Think of other things. No stress. Ommmmm....

WILL KILL FOR COFFEE.

Hypoxia said:

.
This was back when production canoes were pretty high-tech, and were also seen as immoral devices wherein lovers could paddle to secluded nooks to fuck. The Rocket was thus a flying fuckmobile. Oy.
_____

Okay, I'll admit it. I attempt to distract myself from reality with rants here on 'ukuleles and steamcars etc. My cardiac shit is worrisome. Poking inside my eyeballs with tools and lasers is bad enough. Mucking about with my heart is on another level. Sure, it's likely safe and needed. My subconscious is not reassured. I try to lead a low-stress life. Ha.

So I'll blather on here about mechanical toys, and about skullduggery on the General and Politics boards, and posting rude pictures, etc. I'm not in denial. I'm probably in avoidance. Think of other things. No stress. Ommmmm....

WILL KILL FOR COFFEE.

Click to expand...

Fingers crossed. Decaff no go ?

We're told that tonight the temperature may get as high as -12C.
I'm not looking forward to that.
Meanwhile, Tea, I think

Handley_Page said:

Fingers crossed. Decaff no go ?

We're told that tonight the temperature may get as high as -12C.
I'm not looking forward to that.
Meanwhile, Tea, I think

Click to expand...

Minus 12! I see spring has arrived early in the UK.

ChloeTzang said:

Minus 12! I see spring has arrived early in the UK.

Click to expand...

Sadly, no.
I fear that Winter is really shaking her tail

Oh I say; is the boiling water? Oh good; may I make a cup of tea ?

My wife learned that this year's flu vaccine is only 10% effective and concluded that the crud we've each suffered with is not a cold, but actually a flu.

I went through a night of severe coughing fits and violent chills, and most of the day has been spent stretched out on the futon in my office. I'm tired, have no appetite, and my muscles ache.

NotWise said:

My wife learned that this year's flu vaccine is only 10% effective and concluded that the crud we've each suffered with is not a cold, but actually a flu.

I went through a night of severe coughing fits and violent chills, and most of the day has been spent stretched out on the futon in my office. I'm tired, have no appetite, and my muscles ache.

Click to expand...

I understand zinc works for flu. I can verify it works on colds. Hope you feel better soon, stay hydrated as best you can.