Hi there, i really like your life story! What are the beads you are reffering to?
On Sunday, June 17, 2012 5:35:54 PM UTC+1, Terry Kennedy wrote: > > On Jun 17, 11:36 am, John Rehwinkel <jreh...@mac.com> wrote: > > The tool part isn't too tough, just carve it out of graphite with pin > recesses. CNC machining would be the way I'd go, but back in the day it > > was done by reading scales on handwheels, and obviously it could still > be done that way. Once you have your graphite mold/pin holder, > > get some nice 3-part pins and lead glass tubing of an appropriate > diameter. Lead glass is the way to go here - it liquifies enough to > > gravity flow into molds like this. > > Around 35 years ago I worked in a glass seal and base factory named > Masden Industries in North Bergen, New Jersey. I started out as a data > entry clerk just out of high school. But being a kid who "knew > everything", I said I could make precision glass beads on an abandoned > assembly line for less money than the division in Haiti that was > currently making them. The owner agreed to let me try (probably to get > me out of the building the executive offices were in). After months of > painful learning, I succeeded. Obsolete pharmaceutical pilot line pill > presses used dies to produce formed beads from glass powder, dye, and > wax. The beads would then go through an electrical sintering furnace > on Inconel mesh trays to form the final size by evaporating the wax > and fusing the glass particles. > > The actual base assembly was done by other people in a different > building. Metal pins from a different division were hand assembled in > carbon jigs with the beads and run through hydrogen-fueled furnaces. > > Somewhere around here I have a box with one of every type of base the > company built, a couple of the carbon fixtures, and a Lucite desk > ornament with the company name and some of the finished bases. If I > run across it, I'll take some pictures and post them. > > The company didn't make the covers (almost all production was for > metal-can devices, usually crystals). The only glass cover I can > remember the company making was for a generic 3.58MHz color burst > crystal, and those were demos for Motorola, if I remember correctly. > > After I left the company they moved to the suburbs (due to reasons > unrelated to the seal division, the company's buildings tended to > explode, blowing out windows for blocks - but that's a story for > another time). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/neonixie-l/-/Gs90sh9WgJgJ. To post to this group, send an email to neonixie-l@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/neonixie-l?hl=en-GB.
