timelets: (Default)
So far, we've built and tested prototypes of the 3rd world non-medical facemask for occasional use, e.g. brief shopping, visits, etc. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3373043/
To improve fit around the nose area, we replaced extra padding (Tie a) with a fold and attached a fitting wire. To disinfect the mask, we used 170F (~70C) heat from a regular kitchen stove for 30minutes. https://europepmc.org/article/med/14631830

The mask is comfortable to wear; it covers the entire face and in combination with glasses prevents users from accidental touches..
timelets: (Default)
... by 1905 I had fairly in mind the specifications of the kind of car I wanted to build. But I lacked the material to give strength without weight. I came across that material almost by accident.

In 1905 I was at a motor race at Palm Beach. ... foreign cars...

After the wreck I picked up a little valve strip stem. It was very light and very strong. I asked what it was made of. Nobody knew.

...it was a French steel and that there was vanadium in it. We tried every steel maker in America—not one could make vanadium steel.

I sent to England for a man who understood how to make the steel commercially. The next thing was to get a plant to turn it out. That was another problem. Vanadium requires 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The ordinary furnace could not go beyond 2,700 degrees. I found a small steel company in Canton, Ohio. I offered to guarantee them against loss if they would run a heat for us. They agreed. The first heat was a failure. Very little vanadium remained in the steel. I had them try again, and the second time the steel came through. Until then we had been forced to be satisfied with steel running between 60,000 and 70,000 pounds tensile strength. With vanadium, the strength went up to 170,000 pounds.

Having vanadium in hand I pulled apart our models and tested in detail to determine what kind of steel was best for every part—whether we wanted a hard steel, a tough steel, or an elastic steel. We, for the first time I think, in the history of any large construction, determined scientifically the exact quality of the steel. As a result we then selected twenty different types of steel for the various steel parts. About ten of these were vanadium.

--- Henry Ford, My Life and Work.
timelets: (Default)
...almost always made of softwood two-by-fours, or “stick,” in construction parlance, that have been nailed together in frames like those in suburban tract houses.

The method traces to 1830s Chicago, a boomtown with vast forests nearby. Nailing together thin, precut wooden boards into a “balloon frame” allowed for the rapid construction of “a simple cage which the builder can surface within and without with any desired material,” the architect Walker Field wrote in 1943. “It exemplifies those twin conditions that underlie all that is American in our building arts: the chronic shortage of skilled labor, and the almost universal use of wood.” The balloon frame and its variants still dominate single-family homebuilding in the U.S. and Canada.

“You can make mistakes and you can cut another piece...” “With concrete and steel, it’s just a lot more work to fix problems.” ... If supplies run out ... builders “know they can run to the nearest big box and get what they need.”

Stick construction allows builders to use cheaper casual labor rather than often-unionized skilled tradespeople. And it makes life easier for electricians, plumbers, and the like because it leaves open spaces through which wires, pipes, and ducts can run.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-13/why-america-s-new-apartment-buildings-all-look-the-same

Profile

timelets: (Default)
timelets

August 2025

S M T W T F S
     12
3456 78 9
10111213 14 15 16
17 181920212223
24 252627 282930
31      

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Sep. 4th, 2025 04:22 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios