Author Archives: Michael Shade

Get to Know Custom Laser Cutting Equipment

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Michael Shade

Ever wonder how the stimulation of a carbon dioxide or neodymium-aluminum-garnet lasing material with either electrical discharges or radio frequency resonators can be used to facilitate industrial cutting or surface finishing processes? If you’re anything like me, your answer is probably an emphatic “Huh?” There’s something about lasers and their operating principles that seem opaque and distant to me. I’d bet that most people I know are aware that “laser” is an acronym, but I doubt that many of them know what it stands for, and even fewer of them could describe how lasers work. The trouble may be that lasers don’t enjoy very accurate representation in media, or it may be that our encounters with lasers in daily life are not very personal or direct. But it’s clear that we benefit from their use in many ways. Continue reading →

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Don’t Ignore Brake Materials

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Michael Shade

Until recently, I drove a 1997 Ford Escort, Old Rusty. At the tail end of winter, the car’s blower motor gave out, rendering the heater and defroster features inoperable. Each morning of the week following the motor’s demise, I would find myself trying to scrape a thick layer of frost off of the inside of my windshield, the concave nature of which was not even mildly hospitable to scraping. When the mechanic at the garage told me that it would cost $600 to fix the blower, I asked him to perform a general inspection of the car. I wanted to know if it was worth putting that kind of money into that kind of car if there was any chance that some other costly problem would present itself. He found that the sub-frame was rusted into oblivion (which is how the moisture was accumulating in the car’s interior and collecting on the windshield), a wheel bearing was loose (which meant the wheel could fly off as I drove somewhere) and that the engine was leaking oil from an undetermined location. Time for a new car. Continue reading →

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Appreciating Bridge Cranes

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Michael Shade

The operating principle of a bridge crane is as easy to grasp as a coffee mug. They pick stuff up and move it somewhere else. For someone who does a lot of writing about a lot of different kinds of industrial products and processes, it’s refreshing to be assigned a topic whose conceptual complexity is roughly equivalent to that of a hammer. Hammers hammer. Hoists hoist. Bridge cranes lift. Continue reading →

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High Pressure Blowers for HVAC and Beyond

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Michael Shade

Enduring the crucible of Michigan’s climate is a trial suited only for the heartiest of the hearty. The winters can be viciously cold, and the humidity of the summers can seep in through your ears and gunk up your brain. That’s why I was quick to act this spring; before the dew point hit the ceiling and I became permanently stuck to my couch, I went out and bought an air conditioner. After a few hours of screwing all of the parts together, mounting the thing in the window and plugging the gaps in the arrangement with plywood, plastic bags and bricks I found in my yard, my living room window became a picture of post-apocalyptic pragmatism. From the outside, what was a reasonably attractive façade is now an embarrassment – the fruit of an idiot’s labors. But darned if it isn’t going to be nice and crisp in my living room while the world outside melts into sweaty puddles. Continue reading →

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We’re Lucky to Have Food Grade Tanks

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Michael Shade

For my birthday a few years ago, I received a Mr. Beer® home brewing kit from my parents, complete with ingredients, instructions and all of the vessels needed to facilitate the transformation of wort (which is sugared, flavored brown goo, basically) into moderately comestible, ideally non-poisonous beer. The kit comes complete with a little plastic barrel fashioned after a wooden brewing barrel, a set of ingredients and sanitizing solutions, and it all comes packed in a box with a picture of a fellow holding a big glass of beer and wearing a very satisfied expression on his face. It would be generous to say that since receiving my beer kit, I brew beer at an amateur level. Heck, it’d be generous to call it “brewing” at all. The process involves heating and stirring the wort supplied in the kit for 45 minutes and then pouring the mixture into the plastic barrel. And let me tell you – that plastic barrel is no food grade tank. Continue reading →

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Deep Drawn Stampings – Insert “Kitchen Sink” Cliché Here

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Michael Shade

Deep drawing could be described as the first choice of doodad manufacturers. If you conduct a Google image search for the term deep drawn stamping, you’ll see on your screen lots of round, metal trinkety things that look like they belong in the 50¢-apiece-box at a flea market. They’re all probably used for something important, but it’s not immediately clear upon first glance just what that use might be. But if you change your search query to “deep drawn,” some of the images you’d see might be more easily recognizable to you. Continue reading →

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Robotic Palletizers and the Road Ahead for Manufacturing

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Michael Shade

When it started becoming clear just how serious the financial crisis was going to be – when access to credit started shrinking, when the orders started disappearing and the payrolls started thinning – coverage of developments in industry were all lean manufacturing all the time. It was “streamlined this” and “automated that.” Lean, lean, lean. If the message started sounding redundant, that’s because it was. But it also seemed to reflect reality. In 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of Manufacturers, there were just under 13 million peopled employed in manufacturing jobs, and the total value of all of the shipped manufactured products from that year topped $5 trillion. By the time the figures for 2009 had been released, which was at the height of the financial crisis, the value of shipped products fell by more than $500 billion, and the number of people employed in manufacturing jobs fell beneath 11 million. A recovery in the manufacturing sector would have to involve some adaptations to the new realities of the global economy. Continue reading →

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We’re Surrounded by Plastics

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Michael Shade

If I were to look at the tag on my shirt’s collar, I’d probably see instructions for washing the shirt and some information about its composition. I happen to be in an office at the moment, so I can’t take off my shirt and look. But if memory serves, the shirt I’m wearing is composed of a mixture of cotton and polyester (and maybe a third ingredient – rayon or something like that). “Polyester” is a blanket term that can be used in reference to a few different kinds of polymers, though it’s most commonly used in reference to polyethylene terephthalate. You may know polyethylene terephthalate by its nickname: PET. If not, you’re certainly familiar with products composed of PET. Your soda bottles, your ketchup bottles, your mouthwash bottles and all manner of other bottle varieties are probably made of PET. You know PET as a variety of plastic. It’s likely that you think of plastics as non-metal, non-wood, non-stone, hard but sometimes flimsy things whose origin you’re not certain of but whose utility is eminently obvious. Continue reading →

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Plastic Tanks’ Place in Our Economy

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Michael Shade

In 1844, the extremely-satisfied-looking fellow you see below, Charles Goodyear, patented the rubber vulcanization process, which is the process of curing rubber with sulfur or other curatives in order to improve its mechanical properties. The discovery of vulcanization could be described as the first step on the path to the development of thermosetting processes and thermoset materials, and those developments were precursors to the development of modern plastic manufacturing. The development of modern plastic manufacturing sparked a paradigm shift in industry, and the implications for other aspects of life, for society, for the environment and indeed for the global economy, were tremendous. It’s no wonder Charles looks so pleased with himself. Continue reading →

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The Powder Metal Parts Age

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Michael Shade

We measure the significance of moments in history based on their placement relative to technological advancements. In other words, moments in history draw their significance from their proximity to other significant events and advancements. Our method of periodizing ancient history, for example, confines entire epochs based on the development and use of technologies. Some of the most important examples are these: Copper Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age. The Iron Age was so named for several reasons. First, and perhaps most importantly, historians needed a name for the time that came after what they call the Bronze Age. The fact that civilizations began developing methods of mining, refining and alloying iron around this time is, by itself, not a meaningful development. But its implications for agriculture, warfare and other activities of society were sweeping, so the name has stuck. What will they call our time 3000 years from now? The powder metal parts age? Continue reading →

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Will Google’s New Privacy Policy Make You Think Twice About Using Google?

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Michael Shade

If you’ve opened a newspaper recently or read any tech blog, you’ve likely noticed headlines about changes to Google’s privacy policy. If you use any of Google’s products or services, you’ve doubtless been exposed to their notifications about the change as well. Here’s what’s happened: Google has overhauled its privacy policy and will apply it to all of its products and services (with a few exceptions) starting March 1st. The most notable and controversial implication of this change for Google’s users is that information Google collects about its users’ behavior will now be shared amongst all of Google’s services, and no user will be allowed to opt out of the terms of the new policy. Continue reading →

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Rubber Extrusions – Worth Your Attention

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Michael Shade

In 1999, the United States International Trade Commission undertook an investigation into whether or not extruded rubber thread (ERT) imports from Indonesia were causing material injury to an American industry. The Department of Commerce had determined that the threads were being sold in the U.S. at “less than fair value,” which, the committee determined, made it too difficult for American manufacturers of the same products to compete. The Commission decided that Indonesia was indeed “dumping” its extruded rubber thread on the American market. In response, the ITC instructed the DOC to instruct the Customs Service to impose duties on extruded rubber thread imported from Indonesia, effectively raising the price of the product for American buyers and making American-made products less unattractive in the process. Continue reading →

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Quick Release Couplings: Brilliant

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Michael Shade

Most of my encounters with quick release couplings involve pressure washers. When I was in high school, I worked at my uncle’s used car dealership between school years one summer. My responsibilities there included removing stickers from other cars, jumping dead batteries, filling flat tires and a myriad of other mundane activities. But my favorite task was washing the cars. Where I live, in the summer time, it gets very hot and very humid. Also, remember that a car windshield is like a magnifying glass for the sun. After a few hours of cleaning coffee stains from the upholstery of cars that have been baking on blacktop all day, the pressure washer starts to look pretty friendly. Continue reading →

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Precise Tube Forming Machines

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Michael Shade

It’s a consequence of the fact that I’ve never participated in a trade or craft that I see the words “tube bending machine” and feel a bit nonplussed. Tube bending machine? Why not just make the tubes bent instead of making them straight and then bending them? I realize that this is the kind of question that someone who has never taken a shop class would ask (shop wasn’t even offered at my high school, as far as I know). Maybe there are machines that exist that can produce bent tubes right from the start. But the fact that there are so many different kinds of tube forming machines on the market, added to the fact that the market for these machines seems quite large, indicates to me that tube fabrication and formation is a counter-intuitively complicated process. Continue reading →

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Ropes: Multi-Millennial Utilities

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Michael Shade

During my first year of college, I traveled with a small group of students on a month-long trip to New England to tour the cradle of American literature – Concord, Cambridge, Plymouth and Amherst, among many other places. One of our last stops was in Salem, where we visited the house of seven gables mentioned in Hawthorne’s The House of Seven Gables. After counting the gables and trying not to bang my head on the low ceilings, I dollied over to a nearby wharf where a three-masted East Indiaman merchant ship, Friendship, was moored. I spent about an hour on the wharf, and I recall a few of my thoughts from my time there. First, it is too cold to be outside on a wharf in Salem in January. Second, while it may be true that the best ships are friendships, Friendship seems like an ironic name for a boat from Salem, Massachusetts, home of the Salem witchcraft trials. And third, I found myself wondering how anyone could ever make sense of the absurd complex of ropes that suspended and supported all of the various wooden things poking out from the hull. Continue reading →

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The Meaning of Screw Machine Products

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Michael Shade

If you’re looking for evidence of the creative ability of humans, look no further than screw machine products. I’ll admit that humans’ ability to produce machined fasteners in large quantities probably doesn’t impress most people. But think about the entire timeline of the development of the technology of craftsmanship. The scientific consensus as it pertains to human beings’ achievement of behavioral modernity suggests that as a species, we’ve exhibited reasonable evidence of behavioral modernity for several tens of thousands of years. Even if you don’t subscribe to theories that place the age of our species somewhere around the 150,000 year mark, even a few thousand years ago the scope of our technology was still by and large limited to rubbing sticks together. Continue reading →

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Roll Forming – Not as Complicated as it Seems

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Michael Shade

Roll forming is an industrial process that can seem a little cartoony. If you were to look at a long roll forming production line, what you’d see before you might seem like an overly-elaborate, Wiley Coyote sort of contraption. Since I learned what roll forming is, I’ve found myself thinking about it now and then and wondering if there isn’t a better way to accomplish what happens during the roll forming process. That’s not to say that I don’t think it’s amazing and fascinating to learn about. I think it’s probably the most logical, intuitive response to the challenge of forming long metal channels into usable products. But maybe it’s the seeming complicatedness of it that gives me pause. Continue reading →

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DEXMET CORPORATION TO OFFER Victrex APTIV® PEEK™ FILM BASED EXPANDED MESH PRODUCTS FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE DEMANDS OF THE FILTRATION INDUSTRY

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Michael Shade

Wallingford, CT – (November 29, 2011) – When Dexmet Corporation, a manufacturer of precision expanded metal foils (MicroGrid®) and polymer films, wanted to add a high performance polymer to its PolyGrid® portfolio, it chose one of the highest regarded performing thermoplastics in the world, Victrex APTIV® film made with VICTREX® PEEK™ polymer. Utilizing specifically designed proprietary equipment and processes, Dexmet performs an expansion procedure on the high performance polymer to produce a diamond configured, open area mesh product for filtration applications. Providing all of the outstanding properties of VICTREX PEEK polymer in a versatile thin film format, APTIV film was selected for its superior combination of mechanical strength, chemical and high temperature resistance. “While it technically falls under our high temperature PolyGrid product line,” said Ken Burtt, VP of Sales and Marketing at Dexmet, “APTIV film provides much more than just high temperature capabilities. It also has great chemical compatibility as well as mechanical strength that may be required for certain filter applications in harsh environments making it more of a ‘high performance’ PolyGrid material.” Continue reading →

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Palletizers: Making Industry More Efficient

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Michael Shade

I once worked in an apparel wholesaler’s warehouse for a summer job. During my short tenure there, I had a variety of responsibilities, all of which related to pulling orders from storage shelves and transporting them to the warehouse shipping area. Never having worked in that kind of environment before, a lot of what went on in the warehouse struck me as quite novel. The biggest novelty was my responsibilities, which involved riding an industrial-sized tricycle, complete with oversized storage basket, up and down the rows and aisles of the warehouse. I would stop to pull a certain number of T-shirts or sweatshirts or shorts from a box based on whichever order I was assigned, making sure to ring my bell every time I approached an aisle break in order to avoid collision with a forklift or another tricycle. Later I moved up the ranks to order checker, and eventually I was allowed to pull and check my own orders. Throughout my time in that warehouse, I was struck by the number of things that have to go right in the warehouse in order for customers to get exactly what they asked for. Continue reading →

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Amazing Plastic Extrusions

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Michael Shade

For people who haven’t thought hard about it, plastic extrusion might not seem like anything special. In fact, it’s likely that few people outside of industry have a firm grasp of the concept of extrusion. In the interest of enriching general public understanding of industry, please consider the following.

Preferred Plastics Plastic Extrusions

Plastic extrusions image courtesy of Preferred Plastics.

Continue reading →

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