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SRSMEEBBQ March, '99 Meeting Report

--Wow! What a good time we had. And the most amazing thing of all, for only the second time since I instigated the first BBQ Club more than 8 years ago, I actually broke even!! Thanks go to the many consciencious individuals who were thoughtful enough to contribute to the BBQ Fund. It's always a special occasion when the freeloaders stay home and the devotees have the day to themselves.

--I am als indebted to the eager few who, when I frequently yelled out "I need a volunteer", came running to perform this or that odious chore. Thanks especially to Dick Vennerbeck who took out the garbage and who manned the BBQ when I was called away and to Todd Guldembrein who not only operated steam equipment, but helped me with the dishes and clean-up after the event. Thanks also to all those folks who brought interesting show-and-tell items. Mike Kan's cooling apparatus was of particular interest (alcohol behaves like molasses when cooled almost to the freezing point!), as were John Woodson's pop-pop boats, which are reaching new levels of sophistication and control.

--We had 14 people at the meeting, including a new face or two. Some folks couldn't make it due this or that problem, but all in all it was a good turn-out. There was quite a bit of good show-and-tell and the sit-down meeting went off without a hitch. I didn't manage to poison anybody, either!

--In addition to photos and text, I have added a list of URLs belonging to listmembers. If you are part of our band of merry persons and yours is not included, please email it to me and I will update this page post haste! After that I have included some interesting sources of supply that were unearthed during our get-together.

At the bottom of this page I do have a bit of a rant concerning who chooses to participage and who does not... But let's start with some notes I took at the sit-down portion of the gathering, followed by captioned photos. Enjoy!

Round-The-Table:

--With better than a dozen on hand, there was much to talk about and most everyone had interesting things to say.

Mike Kan talked briefly about his home-made vacuum apparatus, which he uses to fabricate dichroic mirrors, which are used in holography. This field is not as lucrative as it once was, but Mike has the system down to a fine art (Later in the day he treated us to a video he has made that demonstrated the steps needed to sputter coatings onto glass and other substrates). Mike has also developed a most unique camera which automatically compensates for contrast, so that someone who had their photo taken with it would have their face rendered without shadow or loss of detail, even if the sun were shining at the camera lens, right over their shoulder! Mike produced a prototype a few years back and he reported that he has just secured a bit of funding to develop the idea further.

Bart Smaalders has been hard at work on his boat's steam engine. At last year's Great Delta Steamboat Meet the engine, a converted 2-cylinder air-brake compressor, suffered a bit of a break down when the brass pushrod that connects a bellcrank to the overhead slide valve broke in the middle. He did a skillful field repair that got him through that weekend, but he is now cobbling up something more robust. In an effort to reduce the load on the pushrod he is changing to a balanced valve set up, i.e. one in which steam forces acting on the moving portion of the valve, as it slides across the fixed port, are reduced a bit. This will also have the effect of increasing the amount of work the engine can deliver to the prop shaft, so he should see an increase in engine rpm. Bart is also fiddling around with atomizing burners and he brought one along and tested it in the driveway. What a blast of heat! For this "portable" version, he used propane to pressurize the oil he was burning, but in his boat he would use steam to do the deed. The trick, he says, is to set up the thing the way an "air amplifier" works (ever see one of those OSHA-approved "safe" air compressor nozzles?). A small jet tube of steam or propane-pressurized fuel spurts through a larger tube through which air can flow. The fuel flow "grabs" air from the larger tube and the resulting dual flow provides good mixing so that complete combustion is more likely.

Mike Rehmus arrived complete with camcorder and videos of various events, including a ride on a Missippi sternwheeler. Mike is a member of BAEM, the Bay Area Engine Modellers club, which meets on th third Friday of each month and he told us a bit about their shenanigans. Mike also sells a variety of videos which document events of interest to tinkerers, including ones that cover the two great North American model engineering events. These are NAMES, short for the North American Model Engineering Show and the other one (I forget the name!!). Mike brought along a short "teaser" tape of NAMES (I liked it!! Gotta get me more of that...).
In addition to his videotaping skills, Mike is in the process of reorganizing his workshop, following a move (hey, I can relate to that too!). There are one or two tools he has decided he no longer needs in his shop and he would like to sell. Foremost among these is a 14in. swing Rockford lathe, which cas a capacity of 72in. between centers. Give him a holler if you're in the market.

John Woodson has been doing a lot of html lately. He has just put up a page for an e-commerce website that has no less than 1,200 internal links and several hundred external ones, not to mention 120 pages and 400 photographs! And I thought I had problems... John travels quite a a bit and does a fair bit of commuting between the Bay Area and Fredericksburg, TX where he is engaged in several steam-related mega-projects including the construction of a sternwheeler and the resurrection of a Stanley automobile. John has photos of these on his website, which is listed in the directory below.

John Galt is a software practitioner and of late he has been trying to set up Linux ...on a 386?? He's also tinkering with a VAX machine and is upgrading to VMX. (somewhat Greek to me; interpretations and further explanations appreciated!). John has also set up a BBS in his home town of Sacramento, because there doesn't seem to be an ISP that provides shell access.

Fred Wright is quite familiar with the civilian spacecraft industry and recently he attended the roll-out of the first Roton in the Mojave Desert. This unique craft is a product of the Rotary Rocket Co. and it features a unique propulsion scheme, consisting of 72 small rockets that circle its base. These rockets are aimed askew, so to speak, so that in addition to providing ascent power, they also tend to rotate the vehicle's base (the craft has both rotating and non-rotating sections). rotation provides the pumping action needed to supply fuel for the engines, so that no bulky pumping apparatus and attendant motors needs to be included in the payload. This weight savings translates into a larger lift capacity to orbit. The first vehicle will be a "glider" that will be used for descent tests. In this regard the vehicle is also unique: rather than locating a heat shield across the entire bottom of the vehicle and then having large wings (useless in orbit of course), the vehicle has further weight savings by using a 4-bladed heat-shielded rotor perched on top. This way, the vehicle slows as it enters the atmosphere with the aid of a "fireproof" rotor whose low-total-area rotating airfoils provide the necessary braking force needed to return to safe landing speeds. Rockets on the tips of the rotor blades provide power to allow a controlled tail-first landing, too. Later in the afternoon Fred showed us a promotional video that demonstrated the salient points of the vehicle and its flight plan. First orbital flight will take place early in the next year.

Dick Vennerbeck mentioned that the fellow who licked the O-ring seal problem on the space shuttle is our fellow steamboater Gerry Blaine. He figured out a way to vulcanize the O-ring material in place, within the labyrinth of the formed metal lip of each SRB segment. Gerry did this by wrapping steam lines around the assembly and "baking" the rubber in place. Ah, the little-known benefits of steam!
At present Dick is working with ultra-ultrasonic cleaning apparatus and his new company is finding quite a few customers for the technology. What he has done is to produce a device whose ultra-high frequencies, on the order of 935khz, can knock off finer debris than other ultrasonic cleaners can remove. Dick says that until his machines came along, the technology to produce higher densities of components on substrates had exceeded manufacturers' abilities to provide surfaces clean enough to be used. Thus, although the techniques existed to squeeze high densities of information onto CD-ROMs and the like, the information would have been flawed due to impurities in the manufactured surfaces. Now with Dick's equipment, ultrapurity is achievable and progress marches on.
As if that weren't enough to keep him occupied, Dick's company is now setting up its own railroad! They have acquired 20,000 ft. of 12-lb rail and a 3-truck narrow-gauge Shay locomotive. The thing will run around the factory on 15-in. gauge track.

Chris Roberts is rebuilding a 20hp Stanley condensing engine. The engine, when he acquired it, had been poorly rebuilt and some major mistakes had been made. This resulted in the destruction of the connecting rods and crankpin, so he's got his work cut out for him!

Todd Guldenbrein's Cretors Popcorn Engine restoration has had a bit of a setback, as the boiler has sprung a leak. This contraption has a most unique boiler which consists of a tube or corrugated copper with stayed ends. Since it was intended to operate at very low pressures to begin with (the safety pops at 25psi), the original construction method was to soft-solder the whole thing together. This means that whatever fix is needed must also be repaired with this same material. Any higher temperatures applied to the boiler might cause further rupturing of other seams and joints sealed with the low-temperature solders of yore.

Allen Gregg has purchased a Shizuoka CNC mill and is running it with a PC and the Ah-Ha CAD software. He's also trying to sell a huge radial drill that he has painstakingly rebuilt into a beautiful monster (I saw it a while back: a real beauty!).

Ed Haas is currently interested in piezoelectrics and is trying to determine whether or not such a substance can be sputtered, or at least attached as a thin sheet, possibly with a thickness of around .020in. or so, to a flexible substrate. Dick Vennerbeck knew more about this than anyone else at the gathering and Ed will pursue the project with Dick over the next few weeks.
Ed is also interested in sub-micro R/C aircraft and related a few details about his store-bought B-2 which has a wingspan of around 30in. and which has a flying weight of less than half a pound. He is still awaiting the arrival of the back-ordered transmitter and receiver, but when all is in place he plans to use the diminutive flyer to polish his long-languising skills as an R/C pilot, flying about his front yard meadow.
When he acquired his new digs a few months back it came equipped with a grand total of no bookcases and lately Ed has set up an assembly line to produce some utility-grade ones for his shop and some nicer ones for inside the house. He showed us some of the jigs and fixtures he has built in order to whack them out at the furious pace of one per day (weather permitting...). For more on this, link on over to Jigs, Fixtures and Shop Hacks.

Photos:

Photo #1: An array of small engines and other apparatus brought by participants.
Photo #2: L to R: John Woodson, Mike Kan, Todd Guldenbrein and Dick Vennerbeck lurk in my workshop.
Photo #3: Mike holds a small "popsicle" made from a toothpick stuck into a copper cap full of frozen Isopropyl alcohol. Using a refrigeration device consisting of a Stirling engine driven by a small oscillating electric motor, similar to the kind used to aerate aquariums (aquaria?), the cold end of the heat engine can be cooled to temperatures low enough to liquify air.
Photo #4: Here's another shot of Mike's Stirling refrigerator in action. When the LED he is holding was lowered into the chilly interior, it brightened considerably, demonstrating the reduction of resistance that can achieved at extremely low temperatures.
Photo #6: Interesting connundrum: first attach a large steel ball to the magnets fastened to the base. Stretch the string just a bit so that the paperclip touches the ball. Let go and the paperclip always takes the ball away from the magnets! Why???
Photo #7: Ah. The infamous Maytag lawnmower. Said to be a nightmare to operate, as one stone would cause the blade to explode, lopping off the operator's feet at the ankles. Hitting an obstruction also tended to break the delicate, hollow crankshaft, so this surviving example is quite rare!
Photo #3: Unknown table engine, brought by--??
Photo #8: Always in the lime light?? John Woodson holds the genuine article: a lime light, as used in theaters a hundred years ago. The cup-shaped thing on the left is threaded to accept a hunk of limestone.

Links (and primary interests of) List-members:

Dewey, Dave	steam boats & locomotives	http://www.quiknet.com/~djdewey
Haas, Ed	poppet valve steam engines & weird art	http://www.nmpproducts.com
Kan, Mike	electronics & vacuum coating	http://pacbell.net/mikekan
Mumford, Bryan	electronics & woodworking	http://www.bmumford.com
Smaalders, Bart	steam propulsion machinery	http://playground.Sun.COM/~barts
Vennerbeck, Dick	ultrasonics & steamboats	http://www.steamnet.net
Woodson, John	software & pop-pops	http://www.stanleysteamers.com

Sources and Supplies

In situations where flexibility is needed, Bart Smaalders is using teflon tubing with a stainless braid protective cover for steam lines in his boat. THis material is good up to 500deg. Farenheit, which is more steam pressure than any of us use in our boilers, so there is a good safety margin. Bart buys the stuff from an outfit called Power Industries. I'll have further details in a few days.

If you are looking for cast iron bushing stock (very handy for making your own cylinders, as it already has the center "removed") two sources were mentioned. Metal Mart and Grainger both carry the material.

Now, about that Editorial Rant...

--We had a good turnout for this, our second meeting, but there were no kids and no members of the female persuasion to be seen this time. I really, really don't want this to devolve into a "boys club" and I would like to take steps to achieve a more balanced membership, but I am at a loss as to how to proceed and suggestions would be welcome.

I was informed by a third party that a female attendee to a previous meeting found my manner to be ...well, authoritarian and this was percieved to be off-putting. In addition there was said to be excessive whining by some attendees, concerning a number of things including excessive weight, not being successful, etc., i.e. all the things that people without any social graces tend to whine about. I believe I have at least partially addressed this problem by limiting the time any one person has to speak at the round-the-table session, using a simple formula: 90 minutes, divided by the number of folks present. At this last meeting that gave each person 9 minutes to speak. The more astute whiners realized they only had a certain amount of time to get to the point, so distractions from the subject at hand were kept to a minimum. The less astute ones don't get invited back, so the problem should be self-correcting in the long run.

As for my "authoritarian" manner, the current size of our group tends to dictate (ha-ha) this behaviour. That is, any time there are more than two people in a gathering, if someone doesn't lead, there will be chaos. Until the group can be grown to a decent size, the best leadership scheme tends to be an absolute monarchy. I yearn for the day when the organization is big enough to include several people with a yen to hold offices necessary to run a larger group and I would gladly step down in favor of an elected leadership. Roberts Rules of Order would be necessary at that point and everything would become less informal, but there you are. Frankly, it's a pain in the ass to not only barbecue the food, but to additionally keep folks focused long enough to have a meeting. I would love to see things delegated between a group leader, a cook, a secretary and so on. When (if?) the chance to adopt other "crowd control" methods arises, I will embrace the change!

-- I can't do it all: there are things that will call me elsewhere from time to time, this year in particular In keeping with these thoughts and a bit of strategy based on my previous observations, I have asked for volunteers to host future meetings. This will also help to help "stir the pot" a bit, i.e. folks that would not otherwise make the journey to my remote digs might be more eager to attend a meeting in The Valley or another metropolitan area. To my great delight (and not too much arm twisting) there were not one, but two volunteers.

The April meeting will be held at the home of Dick Vennerbeck in Silicon Valley and the May meeting will *probably* be held at Todd and Arbuckle Guldenbrein's digs in Vallejo. I'll be hitched by June and I'll host a meeting that month, but then we'll be off on a belated honeymoon so other arrangements will have to be made for July. Beyond that is too far to plan at the moment, so stay tuned... In any case, I hope we can keep this thing growing: the goal is to maximize what for lack of a better term I would call "cross-pollenation", i.e. a mixing of hobbies and disciplines to accelerate the learning curve. That, and to share good food and a good time! Rant mode OFF.

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