Some cool precision fabricating images:
Porsche 917K, Martini & Rossi, silver paint scheme, starbord aft corner
Image by wbaiv
Now here’s what is Sooo Coooool about the Porsche Renn Sport Reunion. In this frame we see what looks like an original tread pattern back tire… just like the 2nd series Cars in Profile book endpaper. You can also see it marked "AV" as in "AVON".
Here we see a heavily finned cast transmission cover, gray-primered exhaust pipes. (note trumpet shapes, they are wider at the outlet), probably resonance tuned. The welded tube frame (Steel? Aluminum?) is painted an off-black popular with car manufacturers. The sheet aluminum luggage case above and behind the brake and turn signal, and the bracket supporting the light, are sloppily painted in a more gray and less black version of the same paint.
Really worth note are the aluminum finish on the brake caliper, black oxide socket cap screws holding the caliper. The rear upright could be cast or fabricated , its painted dark gray. I’d say the spring is bare titanium and the rear axle / drive shaft is titanium (nitride?) a hardened surface.
Another bare aluminum bit, upper link to the rear hub carrier. The coil-over shock setup looks like its anchored to the frame at the top. to the lower link at the bottom.
Note that the hardcore racers never painted the fiberglass duct that blows cold air onto the transmission, OR the underside of the engine cover. The edges of the cover are flanged for stiffness, and painted.
Behind the bottom edge of the cold air duct is the conical shift connection. Directly to the right of that is a blue-wrapped hydraulic pipe connecting to the brake caliper. Crossing the blue pipe is a thin metal shaft with a ball joint at the bottom, connecting to the upright. I suspect it links to the rear anti-roll bar, and the bar itself is in there somewhere.
There’s a bracket joining the two exhaust pipes and bolted to the back cover of the transmission. Is it folded aluminum? Folded steel? welded? Is it painted with aluminum paint, or bare? I could call the left side bare, the right side looks painted. Have to look through the rest and see if I can work out what the actual finish is.
Secretary Robert Reich
Image by jurvetson
And a stand up comic to boot!
He opened with:
“Clearly the economy has worn me down. I used to be 6’2”
“Politics comes from the Greek work ‘poly’, meaning many. And ‘tics’. Small blood sucking insects.”
“The fiscal cliff is all micro tactics. It’s a game – a game with a high stakes – but a game. The real issue looming out there is on the demand side; there is not enough aggregate demand to buy what we can make with full employment.”
“80% of U.S. workers are hourly workers. If you are a male hourly worker, you are paid less today than in 1980. Wages have not beat inflation over 30 years. But the economy is twice as large. Consumers are 70% of our economic activity, and until 2008, the U.S. consumer kept on buying. How could this be? There were three coping mechanisms to stagnant wages, and none of them are sustainable sources of growth:
1) Women entered the paid work force
2) Average work hours per week grew to surpass even Japan
3) We took trillions of dollars from our homes with mortgage debt”
“Not every country can be a net exporter.”
“I have two new hips. They are beautiful. I wish I could show you. I had to ask the doctor where my hips came from. It’s like a part of my personal identity. I wondered if I met domestic content requirements. The hips were fabricated in Germany. Germany has the best precision manufacturing China in the world. They have high wages. Their education system is world class and has high minimum competence in technical education. The top 1% have 11% of the wealth, not 24%. And they have strong unions. But my hips were designed in France. I have French designer hips.”