Post by Apollo Gnomon on Feb 27, 2007 2:22:10 GMT -4
Okay, I'm not swigging Nyquil straight from the bottle anymore, so I'm gonna try it again. Not that I care what Rocky thinks, he's obviously a multi-talent know-nothing.
I misspoke and overgeneralized from my usual work errors, and Rocky took this to mean that I think that good cutting torch work involves melting a hole in the plate. Far from it.
Rocky's first mistake is believing that there are disinformation agents.
I said something that's outside of his limited knowledge and experience base, he perceives it as a sign that I don't know what I'm talking about, and immediatly jumps to the conclusion that I'm a disinformation agent, rather than thinking "he's on dope" or "he's talkin' out his @ss."
Here's the thing about cutting torch work. Yes, you can do it perfectly, and have no slag. If the torch is sized right, the metal will heat up enough to get a cut started without having it blow through, or slump, or melt around the edges. Cutting metal in an educational settting, as he described his experience, is an ideal situation, where the tools are in good condition and are always used to do the job they were designed for. So you heat up 1/4" steel plate or L to an orange glow (not dull or cherry, closer to melting temp than he perhaps realizes) and then blow pure Oxy on the hot metal. It burns through, and the heat of burning iron helps carry the rest of the cut along.
So let's go back to the 3" or 4" thick steel beam poking up out of the rubble in the picture Rocky linked to. Among the things most CT's don't know Jack about is heat. The torch in a random work truck is not going to be able to heat 3" or 4" thick steel all the way through. The welder is going to have to work the torch around the spot chosen to preheat, since the rest of the metal is acting as a heat sink on the work area. Heat spreads, from hot area to cold area, and hot areas around the work area can actually insulate heat from flowing away. Sometimes dramatically, and suddenly. What the welder wants is good heat penetration, without overheating. It takes time, and skill, and care.
When I've cut big poles down that used to hold signs, sometimes I overheat the starting spot, and by the time I can get the cut to go thru instead of spashing off the surface and blowing crap all over me, the middle of the cut sometimes melts out. Once the cut is started, it's usually a pretty easy task to just nibble it out, working the torch back and forth, cutting the top corner, the bottom corner, then the middle and back to the top.
But when I've done it hanging off the side of a bouncy cherry picker, I sometimes just get the stupid jop done, and quality of cut be d@mned.
So I extrapolate from my experience base, and I can see where the welder had to heat an enormous area in order to get the cut started. I can also see where he took a break (probably to shake out his arm) and had to restart. I can also see the grooves in the metal change angle on the side nearest the camera, from where the bucket was, to the lower side of the cut.
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If Rocky really wants some disinformation, here it is.
AG is one of the three names I have here. You have to guess the other two.
JayUtah is actually an AI running on a computer at Jay W's work. He got tired of debunking the same stupid stuff over and over and he and LunarOrbit decided to automate some of the process. JayUtah was "away" for a while because that computer needed to do real work.
The mod, LunarOrbit is also an AI, and was the prototype for the JayUtah program. It's running as Jay's screensaver at the moment.
Both Jay and LO the human also post, and I can tell which is which. Can you?
I misspoke and overgeneralized from my usual work errors, and Rocky took this to mean that I think that good cutting torch work involves melting a hole in the plate. Far from it.
Rocky's first mistake is believing that there are disinformation agents.
I said something that's outside of his limited knowledge and experience base, he perceives it as a sign that I don't know what I'm talking about, and immediatly jumps to the conclusion that I'm a disinformation agent, rather than thinking "he's on dope" or "he's talkin' out his @ss."
Here's the thing about cutting torch work. Yes, you can do it perfectly, and have no slag. If the torch is sized right, the metal will heat up enough to get a cut started without having it blow through, or slump, or melt around the edges. Cutting metal in an educational settting, as he described his experience, is an ideal situation, where the tools are in good condition and are always used to do the job they were designed for. So you heat up 1/4" steel plate or L to an orange glow (not dull or cherry, closer to melting temp than he perhaps realizes) and then blow pure Oxy on the hot metal. It burns through, and the heat of burning iron helps carry the rest of the cut along.
So let's go back to the 3" or 4" thick steel beam poking up out of the rubble in the picture Rocky linked to. Among the things most CT's don't know Jack about is heat. The torch in a random work truck is not going to be able to heat 3" or 4" thick steel all the way through. The welder is going to have to work the torch around the spot chosen to preheat, since the rest of the metal is acting as a heat sink on the work area. Heat spreads, from hot area to cold area, and hot areas around the work area can actually insulate heat from flowing away. Sometimes dramatically, and suddenly. What the welder wants is good heat penetration, without overheating. It takes time, and skill, and care.
When I've cut big poles down that used to hold signs, sometimes I overheat the starting spot, and by the time I can get the cut to go thru instead of spashing off the surface and blowing crap all over me, the middle of the cut sometimes melts out. Once the cut is started, it's usually a pretty easy task to just nibble it out, working the torch back and forth, cutting the top corner, the bottom corner, then the middle and back to the top.
But when I've done it hanging off the side of a bouncy cherry picker, I sometimes just get the stupid jop done, and quality of cut be d@mned.
So I extrapolate from my experience base, and I can see where the welder had to heat an enormous area in order to get the cut started. I can also see where he took a break (probably to shake out his arm) and had to restart. I can also see the grooves in the metal change angle on the side nearest the camera, from where the bucket was, to the lower side of the cut.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If Rocky really wants some disinformation, here it is.
AG is one of the three names I have here. You have to guess the other two.
JayUtah is actually an AI running on a computer at Jay W's work. He got tired of debunking the same stupid stuff over and over and he and LunarOrbit decided to automate some of the process. JayUtah was "away" for a while because that computer needed to do real work.
The mod, LunarOrbit is also an AI, and was the prototype for the JayUtah program. It's running as Jay's screensaver at the moment.
Both Jay and LO the human also post, and I can tell which is which. Can you?
