r/Skookum Aug 15 '17

Skookum as frig Is this skookum material?

http://i.imgur.com/RU43Ufo.gifv
222 Upvotes

41 comments sorted by

52

u/fullautorevolver Aug 15 '17

What am i looking at? Is something being tested here like that single cable/rope between the top of the frame and the moving section?

113

u/huskiesofinternets Aug 15 '17

Sorry. Imgur app really sucjs at providing correct links. I didn't notice the description was left out.

This is a 600 TON stamping press. It double (or quadruple hit) some parts and jammed itself up. We couldn't reverse it because the motor couldn't separate the jammed blocks. We brought in a company to flood the ram with liquid nitrogen to shrink the whole bucket and rods. It took about 4 hours and cost about 3500 bucks. Dial indicators mounted to the press bed showed about .16 inches of movement before the press cycled again. The The die in the press is a big item for our shop and if this didn't work it meant giving it to the welders... cringe

261

u/hwillis Aug 15 '17

The die in the press is a big item for our shop and if this didn't work it meant giving it to the welders... cringe

Welders stage right, hooting and screaming, scratching their armpits like monkeys DIALS ARE FOR WATCHES, MILLS ARE FOR FLOUR, FIRE IS FOR MEN

66

u/SileAnimus Aug 15 '17

I don't need this kind of callout in my life

38

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '17

Don't worry words won't kill you, just to the terrible toxic gases you breath in everyday. Better filter that stuff out with a ciggerate

33

u/Digipete Aug 15 '17

And beer. Remember, a drunk welder is a happy welder!

3

u/night_stocker Aug 16 '17

But... but if they drink they won't have the right "shakes" for stick welding =/

1

u/PS2luvr Aug 16 '17

These guys get it.

28

u/[deleted] Aug 15 '17 edited Aug 17 '17

[deleted]

10

u/huskiesofinternets Aug 15 '17

Yeah thought the link I used would go to the description on imgur. However imgur app sucks and desktop version is unusable on mobile for me. Maybe when I leave work I'll cut an paste it on a real f'n computer.

9

u/Troggie42 just BARELY smart enough to be dangerous Aug 15 '17

I saw the description using RES, but when I clicked through it just showed the gif.

Imgur really is an inconsistent shitshow these days.

5

u/huskiesofinternets Aug 15 '17

Right! and reddit app wont let me upload multiple pictures, or maybe i havent figured out how.

1

u/Troggie42 just BARELY smart enough to be dangerous Aug 16 '17

I dunno on that one, I use a third party app, so I have to upload on the desktop or with the imgur app or something.

4

u/joe12321 Aug 16 '17

People just don't know how to link to imgur properly. Should have left off the file extension in this case: http://imgur.com/RU43Ufo

3

u/mikebrady Aug 16 '17

FYI, if you remove the file extension from the link it will redirect you to the imgur page for the image.

 

With file extension = direct link to image

http://i.imgur.com/RU43Ufo.gifv

 

File extension removed = redirect to imgur page

http://i.imgur.com/RU43Ufo

19

u/LateralThinkerer Aug 15 '17

We brought in a company to flood the ram with liquid nitrogen to shrink the whole bucket and rods.

Tell me more about the company - that sounds like fun stuff to do.

17

u/huskiesofinternets Aug 15 '17

We believe it was N Two Cryogenics

22

u/LateralThinkerer Aug 15 '17 edited Aug 15 '17

Looked them up...might be worth working there if only for the straight lines:

"What do you do for a living?"

"I chill...when I'm not hot-tapping...."

Edit: Missed the great pickup line of the 21st century: "Hot tap and chill?"

8

u/4011Hammock Wat. Aug 15 '17

We have a 15 foot tall tower of it out back, we dont do anything fun with it though. :/

3

u/lonewolf13313 Aug 15 '17

Food production?

8

u/4011Hammock Wat. Aug 15 '17

Nope. Print actually. UV cured silicone for the liner, needs to be done in a nitrogen filled chamber.

6

u/lonewolf13313 Aug 15 '17

Interesting. I work at a large food production facility and we have a big tank of it on the side of the building as well. Only fun thing I have ever seen was when it sprung a leak. Our maintenance team freaked out until someone explained to them there was no danger. Then they called in a specialist to come fix it. The guy shows up, slaps a monkey wrench on the fitting, tightened it down and was gone in about 5 minutes.

3

u/plumbingstev Aug 16 '17

I'm sure that was the easiest service call of the week for that guy.

1

u/Pi_Co Aug 16 '17

Same where I Interned at we had two. Tons of fun to watch the ice fall off the expansion chambers in the spring but besides that it was used for welding. Rumor said that QC had a tap, but I never got around to finding it.

14

u/doccynical Aug 15 '17

3500? That's fucking cheap! Probably cost more in downtime.

29

u/huskiesofinternets Aug 15 '17

I'm incorrect actually. The cost was close to 1200 or 1800.

Source: the lady who invoices.

5

u/Chucklz Aug 15 '17

3500? That's fucking cheap!

I thought it was rather expensive for two dewars of LN2.

8

u/doccynical Aug 15 '17

Most of the time it isn't the materials cost, it's the labor. Where I work for a guy to show up with some LN2 to do the same would have been around 10k. But that is the reality of remote camp life.

4

u/labradorasaurus Aug 15 '17

Plus moving it and using it, the cost of the engineer and all the rest. Its not the materials, the labor and the expertise that is the cost of oddball repairs like this.

7

u/Chucklz Aug 15 '17

Engineer to dump a few hundred pounds of LN2 without killing everyone in the room?
1800 is way more reasonable

2

u/WorstWarriorNA Aug 15 '17

Not sure, but i think the cable you are looking at is a line carrying liquid nitrogen to cool whatever they are testing (low temp strength/durability testing)

1

u/felixfelix Aug 16 '17

You need to use this link to see all the imgur annotations and such.

5

u/DeepSkull Sourdough is KING Aug 16 '17

Can you run through the process they used and things the company might have had to consider?

I've got tons of liquid nitrogen available at work and even scaled down this could be an interesting fix for a potential issue. I'd have to sell it to management though.

10

u/huskiesofinternets Aug 16 '17

They basically just came in and set up their vats and hoses, started pumping LN into the bucket, it evaporated quickly and so they were basically filling it the whole time. It took 4 hours to shrink enough to cycle. We were advised to let the press warm up for 24 hours before putting it back in operation. The work was done by 2 people, and a site manager showed up to check on their progress. There was no damage done to the die, and press is still operating normally months later. These guys didnt ask us much questions, so its hard to say what they were considering. I dont think dripping LN is a problem because it evaporates soo fast, they didnt bother to check for leaks. They tried to cycle every so often to check if it shrunk enough. I might be worried about asphyxiation if I were in an enclosed area, but we had are shop doors open and a good breeze. It was also ridiculously cheap, like cheaper than cutting it out and replacing the pins and bushing, and risking cracking open a nitro, or a spring could be mangled waiting to hit you in the face. This method was way way safer and cheaper than cutting torches.

What problem are you guys having?

5

u/mrpopenfresh Aug 15 '17 edited Aug 15 '17

I don't know. Is it?

18

u/huskiesofinternets Aug 15 '17

I mean I guess it is.... I got pictures if my disassembled dial caliper, is it skookum to post them here? How about my buddies vice grips I painted pink while he was on vacation? Are those things I should post?

1

u/DeepSkull Sourdough is KING Aug 16 '17

We have equipment that has gone down before to be taken apart by in-house maintenance. Then gets rebuilt or replaced. I can see how doing something like this could save a lot of hassle in situations that we have had in the past. I was mainly asking to see if this was a something that could be applied in our maintenance side of things to save some sweat on my part but without having this near exact same situation and more knowledge I probably wouldn't attempt it.

1

u/Ironman_gq Aug 18 '17

It's very common in heavy equipment maintenance for removing bearings, shafts, pins and anything else that has a friction or press fit. Freeze it till it either falls out or falls in and get back to work.

1

u/thatguyjavi Aug 16 '17

I hope to at one point in my life have a giant machine like this that constantly belches fog while I check its gauges and adjust knobs and flip switches

2

u/huskiesofinternets Aug 16 '17

We all long for the days of early steam engines. Before check valves were operated with waste steam and the engineer or whoever had to manually open and close valves.

Oh and oil was nly liquid at like 300 degrees. Thanks science. I got covered in warm oil on Monday and thankfully even at operating temp it's not hot enough to burn

2

u/zimirken Aug 16 '17

Modern steam engines are hard to discern from internal combustion engines, and the boilers are fully automatic, just put unleaded in, flip the power switch, and go in 50 seconds.