I wrote another post for the official Olin Student Blog, the Olinsider. The whole Olin College thing is starting to make sense to me now. Check it out!

I wrote another post for the official Olin Student Blog, the Olinsider. The topic is a rocksome concert I went to in the Worchester area. Go ahead and check it out!

http://studentblog.olin.edu/?p=584

George sent me this excellent article about Schwinn’s Electro-forged bike manufacturing done in their Chicago plant before the late seventies. Apparently Schwinn invested in expensive “electro-forging” equipment that make the entire bike frame on site out of strip steel. The different bike tubes (the bottom bracket shell is shown below, hint: your pedals and cranks go on each side of the large hole) are electrically welded together on these nubs. One part becomes the anode, the other the cathode and are pushed together at high voltage. The steel becomes molten, some metal is burned off, and the two pieces are conjoined in a flash of sparks.

Electro-forging was effective at mass production, and is really neat in my opinion, but became unpopular with bikers because the bikes were so heavy. According to the guy at Harris Cyclery, I have the heaviest ten speed ever made (e/f + huge frame = really heavy). The imported, lug construction frames were lighter and Schwinn sold imports until they outfitted their domestic factories to produce lugged frames. But I’ll have you know that my bike is welded together, beautifully sanded, and going to endure forever.

 

Inside the Varsity, Schwinn electro-forging article (courtesy of George) URL: http://sheldonbrown.com/varsity.html

 

Colin

Thanks greatly Sue and Rob!

 

Edit 19 Jan 09:

Some more details on the pen. Robert sent me some details about the wood from which it is made. "The wood is Chechen (Metopium brownei) which is native to Central America and is found mostly in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Jamaica, Belize and Mexico." It seems to be in the Anacardeiaeae family along with poison ivy. Other names for Chechen are Black Poisonwood and Poison Tree. But don't worry, only the bark contains urushiol, a harmful oil toxin.

Other less dangerous facts are that the wood is very hard (2300 on the Janka scale) and was also used in the pen Robert gave to my Grandfather Fred.  

Today Xy opened up a California women's OLPC XO because the firmware was fisked, or so we thought. Inside, we found the problem, a nickel. As much as you might like, you can only store pictures on the microfiche capsule nickles from spy movies.

 Reminds me of putting peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the VCR.

I may or may not be in trouble. I may or may not have purchased a 49cc Motobecane 50V moped on eBay. It may or may not look like this: