Hi,
I do get ask to do some odd jobs, this one arrived yesterday morning. A pair of clear polished cast resin (I think) squares one of which has a tube of oil in it the other mercury. They needed to be round with no scratches! Not having a test piece to see how it machined it took a long time using small cuts and created a lot of swarf!
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Regards Tony.
That is an Odd Job to get called on to do. Museum related I presume?
Hi Stoker,
That is an Odd Job to get called on to do. Museum related I presume?
Close enough; the job is for a company that makes exhibits for science centres. I don't know what they will be used for, I will be visiting the company in a couple of weeks and will ask. Some time ago I drilled about 20 snooker balls (all red; cheaper than the colours?) and mounted cut down shafts of dental mirrors in them. Turned out the balls were put in large holes drilled in some wood so they could be moved around to focus laser beams. They with lasers and other bits and pieces went to America.
Take care Tony.
Hello again,
Having reminded myself of drilling snooker balls I looked out some photographs. There were in fact 40 balls; two for each exhibit that used lasers to pick detect vibrations. The lasers reacted to the ticking of the clock in the photograph.
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Not much good for playing snooker with now!
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Regards Tony.
At first I though they were little pill-shaped tubes sitting loose in a tray, didn't realize they were solid resin blocks. Nice work, but one heck of a mess to clean up!
Hi Nick,
We visit the company the work was done for next week so we might get to find out what they will be used for.
Take care Tony.
Hi,
I visited the company that I turned the resin exhibits for and have found out the reason for the work. They are to be part of a large exhibit of ‘Periodic Table of the Elements’. They have been mounted in a large ball race to they can be turned. The brown liquid in one which I thought was oil is apparently Bromine which along with Mercury are the only elements which are liquid at normal temperature. The turning will allow this fact to be shown. It looks like a large project with all of the 118 known elements being shown along with their details. There is also a very large touch screen television which shows what the elements are used for and lights up the exhibits when elements are selected, looks very complicated, I hope they don’t discover any further elements before it is finished!
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Regards Tony.
Most of the "discovered" elements these days have such short lives and are created in such infinitesimal quantities that I don't think you have much to worry about in that regard.
Nice looking display pieces!
Hi Stoker,
Give it a week or so and they can discover others as the exhibit is being installed somewhere near Liverpool I think.
Photographs I took when visiting the workshop a couple of weeks ago when the screen was being tested
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An information photograph I received yesterday of it being installed.
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Take care. Tony.