"E" is for Efficiency

Want to know a secret? Ever hear of the famous 200 mile-per-gallon carburetor, the one invented decades ago but suppressed by a cabal of greedy oil company executives? Yeah, it never happened. The mother of all urban legends. How do I know? Simple. It's physically impossible.  Trust me on this.

It’s really not too complicated. There is a certain amount of energy contained in a gallon of gasoline, and it takes a certain amount of energy, and thus gasoline, to safely push an automobile, carrying people and their stuff, over the ground and through the air a given distance at a given speed, and to do so in a structure that won't crumple like an origami boulder upon contact with other vehicles or fixed objects (Smart cars seem a little less so when folded under a semi-trailer).

"I know, but I'm getting wicked fuel economy."

Understand that only part of the energy in a gallon of gasoline is actually utilized in moving the car. Much of the energy is lost - through heat loss, mechanical friction, wind resistance, and tire friction and flex. Even noise and vibration is lost energy. And much of what isn't lost must charge the battery, provide spark to the engine, and power the air conditioning and all those accessories (like Junior and Sissy's DVD players and those front seat bun warmers you paid extra for. Not that there's anything wrong with that).  Even the energy that actually drives the car is eventually dissipated as heat through the brakes. Seriously, the carburetor (or fuel injection today) is not the issue.

Engineers maximize efficiency (minimize energy losses) as much as possible, but no mechanical system is 100% efficient, meaning there are always energy losses. Which is exactly why true perpetual motion machines are an impossibility, the crest of each rise on a roller coaster is lower than the previous one and if you spin the most perfectly balanced and adjusted bicycle wheel it will eventually come to a stop. And because there are always energy losses, there is an upper limit to fuel efficiency and that limit is a lot closer to the highway fuel mileage of a Honda Civic than to a mythical 200 mpg.

All of that awful waste may sound positively medieval, but the truth is, the internal combustion engine is still an engineering marvel that has been refined to fuel efficiency and emissions levels only dreamed of just a few years ago.  We're in the midst of a second Golden Age of high performance, only this time clean and economical performance. (More on that another time.) Electric cars and other alternatives are a real improvement in efficiency, but don't kid yourself; there is still noise and emissions and heat involved, it's just been moved upstream to the coal-fired power plant, conveniently out of sight and out of mind. Internal combustion and alternate energy will exist side-by-side for years to come, like mechanical and electronic wristwatches.  At least until someone figures out how to make a solar-powered airliner.

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"D" is for Draftsman

Or "Draughtsman" for our British and Commonwealth friends, of course.

Yesterday I mentioned things that reach an evolutionary dead-end and get replaced by newer technology. A good example of that, one I’m familiar with, is drafting by hand; that is, the craft of making technical drawings with pen and pencil.

I don’t even really consider myself middle-aged, let alone old, but I’m old enough to have experienced some neat things from way back that aren’t around anymore.  Things like rotary dial phones, S&H Green Stamps and glass milk bottles with foil caps, delivered to my childhood doorstep.

I also worked in an old, honorable trade during its final days – hand drafting.

The engineering company I worked for converted fully to computer-aided drafting (CAD) when I was twenty-two (on IBM 286 PCs, heh heh). Before that, I made engineering drawings by hand, either on a heavy translucent cotton paper called vellum (not the real vellum made from sheep skin), or sheets of Mylar film.

I know how to use this and you don't.

 Hand drafting took skill. Drawing neat lines of a consistent width and connecting straight lines to curves smoothly so that one couldn’t tell where the line ended and the curve began were marks of a good draftsman.  Too much pressure with the erasing machine could rub the “tooth” off of Mylar or rub a hole clean through vellum.  Drafting pens had to be held a certain way and were delicate assemblages that had to be cleaned regularly.  Planning was required, as drawing elements couldn't be instantly rearranged like they can in CAD.

   

Of course, a good draftsman had to have good lettering. Mine wasn’t really up to snuff, and never got there before I transitioned to CAD. If a formal drawing needed text, I usually had to use a pantograph-type device called a “Leroy” set. My dad was a draftsman before moving to planning and design, and his lettering was something to behold. His drawings transcended mere conveyance of information and were a pleasure to look at. He was the one who taught me drafting, but six years of part-time work weren’t nearly enough for me to approach the level of his craft. (Side note: he also made me fill out my college application in engineering lettering for practice. Kind of a pain, but it had the intended effect, and to this day I’m still complimented on my printing, at least compared to other engineers.)

Hand drafting has no objective advantages over CAD, so its days are well and truly gone, and I don’t know of any hairshirt-wearing drafters calling for a return to our T-squares. But I love the memories and the tools of the trade and the trade names - Staedtler Mars pencil lead holders and erasers, Koh-i-Noor Rapidograph jewel-tipped technical pens, Keuffel & Esser vernier drafting machines, Dietzgen compasses, Borco self-healing drafting table covers and Higgins Speedball ink, along with planimeters, French curves, railroad curves, stainless steel multiple dividers, erasing machines, erasing shields, circle templates, lettering guides, engineer and artichoke (architect) scales, drafting tape, horsehair desk brushes, pounce, and fluorescent orange triangles.  Huh - come to think of it, some of those things were pretty long in the tooth when I used them thirty years ago.

So how about you? Did you ever have a vocation that went the way of typewriter repair? What were your favorite tools of the trade? ‘Fess up.

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"C" is for Change

If there's one thing most people would agree is constant in life, it's change, and that's certainly true of the things we use. The history of things is the story of how they are changed in the uneven but inexorable march of technology.

There comes a time when many of the things we use are developed to a point of seeming perfection. We don't always recognize it at the time because we're continually looking to improve and innovate, and it's only after we've innovated a thing away from a state of beauty, elegance and simplicity and toward excess weight, needless complication and superfluous ornamentation that we realize we've gone farther than we ought, or than was really necessary. Remember the lithe, elemental Datsun 240Z and its techno-luxury descendant the Nissan 300ZX?

Some things are perfected but are a technological dead-end. The Samurai's katana wasn't replaced by an improved sword; rather, the firearm rendered the whole concept obsolete.

"Don't worry, Gronk.  Chainsaw just passing fad."

Other times we think a thing has reached a state of goodness that couldn't possibly be improved upon, then, suddenly, new technology comes along and upsets the apple cart and progress begins again. Think of the mechanical wristwatch - for over three hundred years it was improved, refined, seemingly perfected, but still a mechanical watch. Then came the 1960s, and quartz movements and digital displays, and suddenly it was a whole new ballgame.

And what is perfection is seldom clear, even in hindsight. It's hard to frown about technology making watches more affordable and more accurate, yet to me, some significant things were lost: style, the work of artisans, the wondrous interplay of miniature jewels and cogs and springs, not adding electronic batteries to our landfills. The thing is, probably no two people will agree on exactly when something has been perfected or even whether it has. Fortunately, the new doesn't always supplant the old; in the case of watches, electronics peacefully coexist with mechanical escapements, and there are more choices than ever to satisfy both me and my more tech-minded counterparts.

You can probably think of your own examples. Maybe you agree with me that the bicycle reached its apogee of grace and goodness in 1986, or, like me, prefer analog watches and instruments to digital ones. Maybe you're a recurve-shooting archer who looks askance at the cams and pulleys of a compound bow. Do you think the story of the automobile is a big anticlimax after your '66 Beetle? Are you a cook that shuns microwave ovens and prepackaged meals? Are you one of those audiophiles for whom nothing can match the music from from a vinyl LP?

I'm not a Luddite or contrarian. I welcome the real progress brought by technology, but I also recognize that some good things get lost along the way and that some change is more about marketing hype or reducing manufacturing costs than about real improvement for the consumer. Five-blade razors? Really? Forty dollars for a ten-pack of refill cartridges? Are you kidding me?

What's one of your favorite objects of enthusiasm? When do you think it reached its state of perfection, or do you think the best is still yet to come? I'd love to hear from you.

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"B" is for Brazing Bicycles

For this installment of my A to Z series about materials, engineering, and making stuff, "B" was to be for "Bicycle Materials," something I've been interested in since I got into bicycling and began working on my engineering degree twenty-five years ago.  (Yes, I did finish).  But it's far too expansive a subject for an A to Z blog post, and these folks here and here do a better job of explaining it than I could anyway.

So instead, I'd like to narrow the topic down to what the guys in the pictures at the above links are doing, which is called "brazing." This is not to be confused with "braising," which I imagine someone is explaining at this very moment in a cooking blog somewhere. 

I remember when I was a kid in the late '70s talking to another kid about bikes (BMX bikes, natch) and him talking about how his bike was great because it was made of "alloy" instead of steel and how it was also better than steel bikes because it was welded, and the steel bikes, his father told him, were "soldered."

Rivendell Seat lug.  Tubes brazed into it and seatstays onto it.

This used to be my bike.

Later, I figured out that by "alloy" he meant aluminum alloy (steel and aluminum bikes are both constructed of alloys, which are simply mixtures of metals), that steel is arguably the best all-around material from which to make a bicycle frame and and that his dad was full of poo-poo.  By "soldering," he really meant "brazing."

Saying the steel bikes were soldered implied that they were weak, structurally unsound, because soldering is a low strength proposition.  As any BMX-riding electronics geek can tell you, soldering is a secure connection for wires and such that aren't under a structural load, but it's not for bunny-hops and double-jumps.  But brazing is a great way to make a strong bicycle frame that gives up nothing in strength to welded aluminum.

Like soldering, brazing involves connecting two or more metal objects with molten metal, but brazing is more precise.  With brazing, the parts are close-fitting and capillary action draws the molten metal into a thin gap between them (recall that when you dip a corner of a sponge into water, capillary action is what draws water up into the sponge, even against gravity).  In bicycle building, the parts are a steel frame tube and connections, called lugs, or other fittings.  The framebuilder liberally brushes a liquid called flux onto and all around the surfaces to be joined, which protect the metals from oxidation and other contamination.  He or she then carefully applies heat to the joint with a gas torch and touches a metal wire (silver alloy in higher-quality frames) to the gap between the parts.  The silver is melted and drawn into the gap.  Brazing is a fairly simple process, but one that takes years to master.  Good framebuilders know just how much heat to apply - too little and the gap won't be completely filled, too much and the steel will be weakened.  They also know where to apply it - the silver actually flows toward the heat source, so by directing their torch, they can make sure the gap is evenly and completely filled.  The close fit of the parts, the large surface area of their interface and the metal filler make an extremely strong joint; failures of brazed joints in well-made frames are beyond rare.  You'll pull a tube apart before you pull it out of the socket of a properly brazed connection.

As with many crafts, the brazed steel bicycle frame has been replaced in the mass market by cheaper materials and methods that are marketed as "improvements" to buyers, especially new ones.  But, as with many crafts, the professional bicycle framebuilder makes something of extremely high quality that is infused with his or her passion and can easily outlive its owner and be passed on to his or her children.

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"A" is for Amal

When trying to start on the Challenge, I noted that many bloggers are using an overall theme for the month.  For example, my friend Dana Martin, the one who tricked me into this thing, has the wonderful theme of gratitude.  At first I dismissed the theme idea out of hand; I didn't see myself coming up with twenty six blog entries on one theme.  But then I started on my first post, A is for Amal.  As in carburetor.  As in carburetors found on old Triumphs and other vintage motorcycles. That need to be “tickled” (primed, that is - the British have always had an inimitable way with words.) before operation.  That sometimes leak.  And have to be tuned properly to run their best.  Or, if you prefer, A can be for antique.  Old, imperfect, charming things.
  

Yeah, I like old stuff, for a variety of reasons.  And those reasons involve things like craftsmanship,  materials, engineering and making things.  I’m an engineer by trade, a Civil engineer to be specific, and I just love stuff.  I like materials, like metal and wood and soil, and I like the things that people make them into; machines and tools and gadgets and art and edifices.  And I quickly realized I’m not going to have a problem blogging on a topic for a month. Now, a theme isn’t going to make the challenge more difficult; it’s probably going to make it possible for me to do get through it at all.

I realized that I have thoughts on engineering and materials and machines and mechanics and processes that are not only fascinating to me, but might even be of some interest to the average person who sees these things mentioned here and there but probably doesn’t know much about them.  So, for the next month, if I pull this off, you’ll see everything from educational posts to fevered reveries on the virtues of forging.  And I'm going to learn some things too, maybe even about myself.

So, yeah, the sort-of topic that I'll sort-of stick to is Things.  What about A for Amal?  Yeah, I sort-of cheated there, but it wasn't on purpose.  You can see how one thing leads to another and how sometimes things end up going in a direction other than that intended, and that's okay.

If you're envisioning drying paint at this point, give it a try.  If you’ll stick with me, you might be surprised.  Or not; either way, please comment - I'd love to know what you think, good or bad.

Best Regards,

Jer

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2013 Blogging from A to Z Challenge

Yes, I'm a participant this year.  The President of our writing club (Writers of Kern) asked for participants and I said yes before even figuring out what it all meant.  Typical for me.  I wanted to back out, also typical for me, but I decided to be atypical for once, and I'm going make an actual commitment.  Signing on the dotted line adds the accountability factor needed to ensure I don't punk out on this like I do with most other things.  Honestly I'm a little worried.  At this point I'm hoping simply to rise to the level of mediocrity.  We'll see.  Bear with me as I get going on this on decidedly shaky legs, and good luck to my fellow bloggers!

Now, let's see, A...

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I Wonder

At this beginning of 2013 I'm curious whether anyone living more-or-less paycheck to paycheck still believes what our parents taught us, that if we work hard and save we'll eventually get ahead.  I wonder if any of my fellow class of '87 mates thinks they'll be retired at age 65 or carries on our parents' expectation that their children will be better off than they were.  Does anyone think we'll ever balance our national budget or pay off the debt?  Does anyone think we'll ever have a system in which the tax code isn't a 71,000 page monstrosity designed as a means for those in Congress to wield and retain power and reward their patrons?  Does anyone believe we're moving as a society toward more liberty and self-determination?  I can't answer yes to any of those questions and I wonder if anyone out there can.  And if you can't, are you going to do anything about it?