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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Dave S via extropy-chat<br><br><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal> <a href="https://reason.com/2020/02/29/specialization-is-for-insects/">https://reason.com/2020/02/29/specialization-is-for-insects/</a><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>There’s plenty to be said for increasing specialization as well.<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></blockquote><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal> >…Obviously. One wouldn't want their neighbor the salesman to do their brain surgery.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>-Dave<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I have a neighbor who is such a good salesman, you could be left a vegetable afterwards but you would still think you got a great bargain in hiring her to do the surgery.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>As I was typing a reply, an idea occurred to me. Perhaps you have seen someone make a sandcast something at home, using molten aluminum. You make the model out of a kind of specialty wax, then you pack around it with a fine-grained sand mixed with a specialty silicate infused ceramic epoxy stuff, let that harden, then pour molten aluminum onto the model, the wax melts and flows away, chip away the mold and there’s your aluminum thing the same shape as the wax model. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>OK, well I suppose one could make a horseshoe that way, but another idea would be to make your model out of tin/lead 37/63 eutectic, as used in the electronics industry for solder. That way the model would be soft enough to work with a hammer without making all that racket that hot steel makes when you work it and it would still be rigid enough to do the kinds of fit checks and such that the modeling wax isn’t strong enough to withstand. Example: tap a threaded hole in the tin/lead model, that might create a workable threaded hole in a sand casting.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>When your cast sets up, Turn the casting upside down, put it in an ordinary propane webber grill full blast, let the metal melt and flow out since it only needs to get to 180C. rig up a homebrew blast furnace with a leaf-blower and charcoal, with the structure made of those interlocking garden-wall stones, where you substitute metal pins in place of the plastic ones to hold them in place. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Now you have your horseshoe shaped cavity (or cavity shaped like a car part (such as an adapter plate)) in your sand cast, your crucible of molten iron, ready to pour. Hmmm… pretty expensive horseshoe perhaps. But we would have fun rigging up the stuff we would need.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></div></div></body></html>