New tool / toy

[sideshow]

My new 100 watt laser for work just arrived this week, Quite a pricey piece of kit, but I need it for marking and engraving the hardware I design and have machined, and also for cutting thin metal sheet, it can deep engrave and mark Cobalt, TI, Nitronic 50, tool steel etc and engraves on almost anything . The machine is amazing, I unpacked it a day or two ago, and only had a chance to use it this morning, set up was a breeze, and if you are familiar with cad, then working with it is super simple.
The first two pictures are markings I did on grade 5 titanium foil, .25mm thick.
Im impressed with the speed of it, Its great to have this to put QR codes on the hardware that I make, which makes the gear traceable and easily identified by yacht crew, so they can see build date, and work load limits etc. The QR code can even take them to my website where they can see the billet certificates of the material used and certification, for when they are being surveyed by both Flag and Class surveyors.
Now I just need a boat called Laverda to order a bunch of gear !

 

[Normski]

That looks a great piece of kit.
I have to ask - how many millions of QR codes are in use and with so many how can they be unique? Can someone please explain?

 

[sideshow]

That looks a great piece of kit.
I have to ask - how many millions of QR codes are in use and with so many how can they be unique? Can someone please explain?

They said this better than I could, Im not so good at explaining things, Im a drawings diagram sort of a guy so I would have made a dogs breakfast of putting it this clearly , "QR codes come in various dot densities - the most dense in current use is a “QR-40” which (if you use the least possible redundancy for error correction) can store 2,953 bytes - which is 23,624 bits.
That means that there can be 223624223624 possible QR-40 codes. That’s an ungodly large number.
It’s more, by far, than the number of atoms, quarks, photons, etc. in the observable universe!
So it’s completely impossible to run out of the densest QR codes" this is from a while back but a good clear explanation, there are now more types of QR codes in use

I thin k there could be coincidences that people put the same information into a QR code, Im not sure what happens then, but most people link QR codes to their websites so that means it may not happen too often that you get two of the same QR codes from different people etc. My QR codes carry my logo and give basic info off line and give you the option to go to my website for more information on the hardware

 

[piranha-bro2]

I can't help but think of a guy from Khartoum I met in Sudan when I was riding with a cycling tour company. He was trying to kit out a road racing team for Sudan and had an old guy make a 55 tooth chainring for a promising rider to use in a time trial ... he made it out of a sheet of alloy, with a hacksaw and a file!! Two extremes - human ingenuity and endeavour at work in both.

 

[sideshow]

I can't help but think of a guy from Khartoum I met in Sudan when I was riding with a cycling tour company. He was trying to kit out a road racing team for Sudan and had an old guy make a 55 tooth chainring for a promising rider to use in a time trial ... he made it out of a sheet of alloy, with a hacksaw and a file!! Two extremes - human ingenuity and endeavour at work in both.

He had skill , I dont . Its impressive what people can do with the little they have, Humans are amazingly creative

 

[GregT]

Your new toy looks very impressive. Just the job for production work where life and certification have to be tracked.

PB2's sprocket story made me laugh. In the 70's here in ChCh, for some reason I had to go and get something for a speedway car from the Stapleton's place. Graham Stapleton at the time was NZ's next big speedway rider hopeful. Didn't happen.
Anyway, there was his dad Jack hand cutting a special rear sprocket for that night's meeting.. Bench outside, blank in a vice, old sprocket being used as a form pattern for filing the new teeth...Jack was half blind and I did wonder at the time if it would finish up with the odd half-tooth.

 

[chrissoz]

I have a 60W co2 laser - amazing tool - yours must be a fibre for the metal marking? Cool toy.
QR40 is around 10-20Kbits - i.e. at least 2^10,000 combination or 2x10^3010. Plenty.

 

[sideshow]

I have a 60W co2 laser - amazing tool - yours must be a fibre for the metal marking? Cool toy.
QR40 is around 10-20Kbits - i.e. at least 2^10,000 combination or 2x10^3010. Plenty.

Yup. It’s fibre. I think it’s going to be fun seeing all the things I can do with it. Yesterday was pretty much chuck anything I could lay my hands on , under the beam to see what it would come out looking like.
I put a can of beer from the fridge under it and put a clients boats logo on it , they were pretty impressed.

 

[GregT]

I do hesitate to ask - but having watched "Sailing yacht - Below decks" - it may come up.....

Can it put the client's boat's logo on female crew members ?

 

[sideshow]

I do hesitate to ask - but having watched "Sailing yacht - Below decks" - it may come up.....

Can it put the client's boat's logo on female crew members ?

if anyone believes below decks, they are very gullible... that may go on on 1 in 10 very unprofessional boats, but the top end boats , that is so far from the truth.

One boat i work with, the bosses wife wont allow female crew, due to several misunderstandings , so i guess it could be put toward male crew too that the bosses wife could label them . But I wouldn't want to try it

 

[piranha-bro2]

You've lost me guys - it must be a sailor thing

 

[chrisk]

Yesterday was pretty much chuck anything I could lay my hands on , under the beam

Don’t put ya hand under the beam.

 

[paulincayman]

Cool tools..love 'em

 

[sideshow]

I had to go and do some work at the shop Saturday morning, to get things finished before we take a vacation . I had a wee play on the laser too. This is something I did up for Kat , she is always after me for a photo of me sailing. I’m not photogenic.
anyway this is a shot of me sailing in the North Sea on a 58 meter ketch. You can’t see it but we are reaching along at 22 kts in 16 kts of breeze. It’s rare to sail in the North Sea in February without rain and sleet, this day didn’t alter from that weather pattern.
The plate I laser marked the photo on is 5 mm thick 316 stainless , it’s 220mm x 150 mm . It’s a piece I would normally have under one of my hydraulic mast jacks when we are tuning a mast , it’s used as a shim to get extra height when needed. So it’s all beat up. I think that adds to the finished product , which I am stoked with. The laser was at 80% power and running 1500mm per second at 30 hz, with 3 passes, which takes about 5 minutes to complete. The possibilities with this tool are endless. A few happy snaps of the yacht racing in St Barth’s , now that’s a great toy to play with

 

[piranha-bro2]

Fark me that's a spectacular boat, Todd!!

And how do you 'tune a mast' ... bigger mains? try a smaller pilot?

 

[sideshow]

Fark me that's a spectacular boat, Todd!!

And how do you 'tune a mast' ... bigger mains? try a smaller pilot?

Tuning the rig is a bit of a process, what you do initially is set the rigging and mast up to a set of pre calculated loads , basically tensioning the standing rigging. Its a bit of a game and involves jacking the mast with hydraulic jacks , and de jacking when you need to adjust the tension further and then re jacking to see if you got it right. Basically you are looking for a load in pressure/ tons where the mast will just lift off its seat in the boat, when you get the base number correct that gets you to a base tune or dock tune, then you go sailing and see what shape the mast has, you then tune appropriately to what you want to see in regards to mast bend and to the sails as well. Its a bit of a job, involves one person in the mast going up and down the mast to adjust tensioners with shims, some older boats have turnbuckles, modern ones like the boat in the photos has shims that you put in, in lieu of turnbuckles which make things come compact and lighter.
Mostly the boats I deal with have Carbon standing rigging, the best gear out there at the moment is from a Swiss company called Carbo-link, some photos of the gear below , the first photo is what replaces a turnbuckle, you put different sized shims in to get the tension you need, most standing rigging is what they call continuous , so the vertical rigging, going from deck to masthead ( outside on the mast spreaders) is one piece and the diagonal rigging ( that goes from mast spreader tips to the mast on an angle, sprouts off from the vertical standing rigging, with out a join. They have articulated ends on them which allows for mast tuning and flex. All metal work that directly touches carbon is Titanium . Its pretty nice looking gear as you can see, and has moved on a bit from what boats used to use. I was a rigger on tall ships before I got into modern boats, I missed the whole aluminium mast stage , and went straight into working with carbon masts, where we had nitronic 50 rod with turn buckles for standing rigging. On big boats back then which were 40 odd meters long, this was back breaking work, as the gear was heavy, then came pbo standing rigging, and then that progressed into carbon rigging, which is really light, where as before you may have needed 6 blokes to carry a big rod, you need 2 to carry a whole side now. They can even send out the rigging uncooked, which means the stay or stays can be coiled up in a small box, then stretched out between two points on a dock or in a carpark, pop the end terminations in, and cook it hard by running a current through it.
It sounds really complicated, but its simple if its your every day job, and just takes time to get it done, A big boat like the one in the photo above will take only a few hours to get a dock tune in, once the mast is stepped.15 years ago big yachts were considered 40 meters long, now they are average sized, and bigger ones are now in the 56-85 meter range. Times have changed !

 

[GregT]

Wow, just wow... I grew up in the wooden mast era of dinghy and keelboat sailing and can remember watching a couple of knowledgeable guys shaping wooden masts. Plenty of discussion and take another few shavings off to try and get the shape under load they wanted.
Then the big leap forward with alloy extrusions. I made quite a few fittings for those as I was of the age to need extra income.For bikes of course.
I wouldn't know where to start with this new tech. Respect.

BTW the North Sea sounds a lot like Lyttelton in an easterly. Always a bottle of Sherry - antifreeze - being passed around the cockpit.
I see they're talking about a SailGP round here. If you know any of them and it happens, warn them it's colder than they're used to, lol.

 

[sideshow]

Wow, just wow... I grew up in the wooden mast era of dinghy and keelboat sailing and can remember watching a couple of knowledgeable guys shaping wooden masts. Plenty of discussion and take another few shavings off to try and get the shape under load they wanted.
Then the big leap forward with alloy extrusions. I made quite a few fittings for those as I was of the age to need extra income.For bikes of course.
I wouldn't know where to start with this new tech. Respect.

BTW the North Sea sounds a lot like Lyttelton in an easterly. Always a bottle of Sherry - antifreeze - being passed around the cockpit.
I see they're talking about a SailGP round here. If you know any of them and it happens, warn them it's colder than they're used to, lol.

I loved working on the tall ships , we made all our wooden spars and sails onboard. All the modern riggers laughed at me when I went modern ( a bit like Dylan going electric, only I’m not a legend) they said wood was just pre carbon or raw carbon and needed to be burnt to become carbon!

was the sherry “old masters” that would crack me up.
Sail Gp is in Aarhus this month. Their summers a mixed bag. I’m hoping to get there to see some mates , we fly to Copenhagen tomorrow.

 

[GregT]

was the sherry “old masters” that would crack me up.

Cheap and sweet - the old man didn't have much of a palate for wines. If it burned on the way down, that would do him.

 

[Rob]

I never cease to be amazed at the non-Laverda related knowledge & expertise occasionally revealed here. I mean - who knew tuning a mast was a thing??
Can only echo Quentin's 'fark me - spectacular boat' and Greg's 'Wow' comments!