Beechcraft manufacturing plant explodes in Wichita, Kansas, injuring 15

[red750]

See here for details, photo.

 

 

[IBob]

That's odd: it's being reported as due to a nitrogen line breakage or leak, but nitrogen is not flammable.

 

Maybe the nitrogen was used for flushing other gases, and they weren't flushing???

 

 

[facthunter]

Nitrogen is used often in Industrial processes and could be under high pressure unless cooled  a lot.  Nev

 

 

[onetrack]

There must have been a huge container of pressurised Nitrogen behind the burst gas line, to provide the level of explosive blast shown in the videos. That explosion is the equivalent of a probably half a kilo of high explosive.

 

I wonder where the gas line piping came from? Sounds to me like someone used Chinese high pressure piping, produced in a Chinese factory with dodgy QC.

 

The big rush to use Chinese products with forged or incomplete QC, or with inadequate materials testing before fabrication, to ensure the product meets specifications, is starting to cause a lot of problems in the Western world.

 

The Americans had a big problem with Chinese lifting shackles that were fake copies of a well-known American brand. They usually failed at 40% of their rated load capacity. These shackles were sold worldwide.

 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fake-shackles-global-accident-waiting-happen-rod-kell

 

 

[facthunter]

I've seen scaffolding  that you don't even have to use to see it's no good. WE make nothing (almost) NOW. IF you want quality you have to look hard and know what GOOD is. That is beyond most peoples skill levels  The importers are the only place to do this. China builds a lot of components for Japanese Companies. THEY must have some ways of maintaining Quality Control. I'm sure it can be done. You would have to WANT to, first. Nev

 

 

[IBob]

Yep, it's got pretty weird in the last few decades: stuff that may look the part, but doesn't actually function.

 

The simplest example. Some years ago I found myself setting up home again, and picked up one of these at the local supermarket:

 

 

When I got to checkout, the operator said 'I wouldn't buy that, everyone brings them back'. And when I asked why, she said they bend. So I gently squeezed the handles together, as you would to puncture a can, and sure enough, the flat handle promptly bent until it touched the other handle....

 

 

It's very much buyer beware at all levels now, but as Facthunter said, judging what is good is beyond the skill levels of many people, and understandably so.

 

 

[red750]

To avoid thread drift, the can opener discussion continues here.

 

 

[IBob]

To avoid thread drift, the can opener discussion continues here.

 

Yep, sorry about that.........(

 

 

[Marty_d]

I've seen scaffolding  that you don't even have to use to see it's no good. WE make nothing (almost) NOW. IF you want quality you have to look hard and know what GOOD is. That is beyond most peoples skill levels  The importers are the only place to do this. China builds a lot of components for Japanese Companies. THEY must have some ways of maintaining Quality Control. I'm sure it can be done. You would have to WANT to, first. Nev

 

 

 

Well, we do produce things, but they come with a price tag.

 

We just bought an ISI bike carrier to fit the caravan - http://www.isi-carriers.com/caravans/jayco/camper-bike-rack.html

 

Unpacked the boxes yesterday.  This thing is quality - the steel on the plates is 6mm, all the welds are perfect and go all the way around each part, and the bloke at ISI said it's an unconditional lifetime guarantee.  

 

All produced at their factory in Victoria.

 

However it doesn't come cheap.  We were okay with paying the large price tag because it's the only system out there that suits our setup and saves time and damage to bikes when travelling.

 

 

[facthunter]

IF it's tools the time wasted with the crap stuff is money and /or you can really compromise the job as well. Buying just on price is a bad policy IF there's an option. Just paying more doesn't guarantee a good product either You can still find out the hard way that you bought high priced RUBBISH. Good tools can last a lifetime . I'm still using a 0-1" Moore and Wright micrometer that my father gave me when I was 13 and all my panel beating dollies I made a few years later..still being used. (when I can find them). . Nev

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Presumably the dollies were made with hand tools, before the advent of the four inch angle grinder?

 

 

[onetrack]

I love old American tooling of any kind - hand or machine. The best ever made. Proto, Blackhawk, Wright for hand tools. LeBlond, Landis, South Bend, Axelson, Cincinatti, Sunnen, for machine tooling.

 

I've got some Caterpillar Service Magazines from the 1930's and 1940's, and there's an article in one that outlines, if you've bought Proto hand tools from Caterpillar, and they've become damaged (even if they've been in a fire!), you just send them back to the Proto factory, and the factory will recondition them to new condition, at no charge to you! (apart from freight costs). How's that for lifetime warranty!! Unheard of, today.

 

A mate has a big old Axelson lathe - a 1942 DoD model, it still has the DoD tag. It still turns to amazing accuracy, with tremendous machining power, virtually as good as it did during WW2. Axelson built aircraft engines, as well as machine tools.

 

I bought a 1940 Landis 36" cylindrical grinder at auction a few years back for $300 - no-one wanted it, yet the Landis cylindrical grinders were the Rolls-Royce of grinders, they grind to a mirror finish, to ten-thousandths of an inch.

 

It's a shame that few people care about this exceptional-quality equipment, so much of it has just gone to feed Chinese furnaces as scrap.

 

 

[facthunter]

ALL the LAME's I knew years ago went for PROTO spanners.. I have a Cincinnati grinder as well as a Jones and Shipman and an early Repco piston grinder, You sort of have to inherit this stuff. , usually.  I didn't, but looked hard and sometimes waited for the right time and sometimes paid too much. Nev