Silicone dreaming

[Mark]

I have ordered some large diameter silicone tubing roughly the same diameter as my 3/4 inch pipe tubing Logan. Then too I have bid on some 1/2 inch tubing and I was going to try to assemble a quick sprint, rev up sound effects tube of some sort. Silicone tubing can only take 500 F for short periods so I was just going to see if I could get a high resonance to even build up in a flexible tube sprayed inside with a mist of methanol beforehand. Any bets? Have I lost it completely? Well, yes, but I'm going to try it anyway.
If it doesn't work perhaps I can attach a bellows and make a fancy duck call. I have an old duck call of my Dad's and it is about a foot and a half long. It's tubing is accordianish with a reed and a small solid tube part. It sounds just like a duck to me too and it's as wobbly as a long-necked goose. Perhaps I could record the sound and mix it with the silicone tubing rev up sound and fool others who try to analyse or make sense of the peculiar overtones.
Mark

[Bruno Ogorelec]

I have an old duck call of my Dad's. (snip!) Perhaps I could record the sound and mix it with the silicone tubing rev up sound and fool others who try to analyse or make sense of the peculiar overtones.

Ha-ha-ha-ha.... Haven't heard anything as funny for weeks...

[Mike Everman]

Yeah, next he'll make one out of papier mache!

[Stephen H]

Yeah, next he'll make one out of papier mache!

hey good idea!!... i have just been trying to make making paper tubes with white glue and news print... the white glue isnt rigid enough though!

Stephen

[Mike Everman]

OK then, how about molding an engine out of castable ceramic loaded with stainless steel wool???? Hmmmmm!
Faaaaaascinating.

[Stephen H]

ok, i'd stop with the paper tubes!!

Stephen

[Mark]

OK then, how about molding an engine out of castable ceramic loaded with stainless steel wool???? Hmmmmm!
Faaaaaascinating.

http://www.use-enco.com/CGI/INPDFF?PMPAGE=709 I have been mulling around with using foil for a few years now, just to see if would work or bind or fuse with the right ingredients. I get an Enco catalog and fliers every year, the fliers every month.
I use to burn mixtures of aluminum powder with iron oxide for fun and entertainment and wondered if I could make a dope of some sort that would combine/thermite with layers of aluminum foil painted with water glass and Fe2O3.
It would be inovative to form a pulsejet out of .002ths steel foil and flash fuse/bake it somehow. For that matter even use .020ths and flash fuse the form somehow with a Florida lightning bolt in summer maybe. I've got to build a high enough lightning rod first though or build a really large magnifying lens and melt it that way, like the deal in Arizona that focuses sunlight with mirrors and melts brick if you want. Where to find the heat, that is the question, or as suggested previously, fire up the prototype and let the heat from the engine set the selected compounding ingredients.
I've got a roll of magnesium ribbon and some powdered titanium, magnesium, and aluminum. They all burn white bright or detonate, depending on what you mix with them, but I don't know of any practical/feasible/transmutable method of flash-baking the alchemy way.
I'd bet ten tacos though that there is some clever way to wrap a cast and form the whole enchilada.
Mark

[Mike Everman]

pure genius, Mark. You'd need a ceramic mandrel to hold it's shape when you touched it off, but I think the idea has merit. How about making the whole engine out of tightly compacted aluminum foil, plate it with chrome really thick, then melt out the aluminum?

[Mike Kirney]

Yeah, next he'll make one out of papier mache!

hey good idea!!... i have just been trying to make making paper tubes with white glue and news print... the white glue isnt rigid enough though!

Stephen

Try using portland cement. A couple of years ago, I was playing with an idea for a new building material, papercrete. I used household lye (sodium hydroxide) to pulp a few pages of the Ottawa Citizen, then I squeezed out the excess water with cheesecloth and a seive and added a bit of pre-mixed cement. It took about two weeks for the stuff to dry out completely (1 cm thick) but it made quite a stiff board, although I could still snap it in two with my bare hands, but not without a bit of effort. If you cut your newsprint into strips and then laid it up around a mandrel using cement, I bet you could make something pretty cool, certainly stiffer and cheaper than using white glue. Perhaps you could wet out the newsprint with water then coat it with dry cement powder, then you could use a spray bottle to wet it down a little more between layers if you wanted. Portland cement is great stuff to play with because it comes in great big 50 lb bags for like 8 bucks so I don't get shy about wasting it. Don't ever pour it down the drain or toilet though, as it can still solidify under water. I would try this myself but my goddamn well is all froze up again so I have no running water. Solution - I'm gonna move to Toronto for a few months :-) .

[tufty]

Try using portland cement.

Eeeagh! Cement pulsejets? Given the tendency cement has to explode and throw off nasty chips under extreme heating, I'd just say this: Be sure to wear goggles.

I would try this myself but my goddamn well is all froze up again so I have no running water. Solution - I'm gonna move to Toronto for a few months :-) .

Froze up? Ack. Our spring has been cut off again by the £$%&@! farmer whose field it orginates in. Time for another 1/2 mile trek through the snow to unplug it again. Bah.

Simon

[Mark]

Try using portland cement.

Eeeagh! Cement pulsejets? Given the tendency cement has to explode and throw off nasty chips under extreme heating, I'd just say this: Be sure to wear goggles.

I would try this myself but my goddamn well is all froze up again so I have no running water. Solution - I'm gonna move to Toronto for a few months :-) .

Froze up? Ack. Our spring has been cut off again by the £$%&@! farmer whose field it orginates in. Time for another 1/2 mile trek through the snow to unplug it again. Bah.

One time I microwaved a plain white cereal bowl in the microwave for almost 2 minutes accidentally not knowing it wasn't microwave safe. For some reason it went off with a terrific bang, a large explosion instead of just shattering meagerly. Whatever stuff you use, you will want it to have a low coefficient of expansion and even then if you put a metal disk valve on the end of it, you will have to calculate some way to provide for the dissimilar expansion rates of the pulsejet aggregate mummy cloth or whatever you choose to meld with the pulsejet head. Or perhaps you will make some kind of valveless pulsejet and forego that problem.
I've concluded that this pulsejet hobby is 99% perspiration and 1% gratification. The actual making is often a dissappointing pain in the ass. Things look easy on paper. It's like being able to see the fruit, but not being able to reach it without great effort. You might as well imagine/paint yourself retired, cruising on a 150 foot yacht in the lap of luxury, and ask yourself how to get there. Same difference. The pie in the sky romance wears off fast when you hit the fabrication and testing phase. Let's see a show of hands who are ready to make something today? What, not enough drawings or sketches to choose from? No that's not it, it is something more apparent. It's hard work. I'd like to try some things, but having the resources and will to fabricate without it becoming more work than it is worth, is a hard thing indeed.
Mark

[Mike Kirney]

Try using portland cement.

Eeeagh! Cement pulsejets? Given the tendency cement has to explode and throw off nasty chips under extreme heating, I'd just say this: Be sure to wear goggles.
Simon

Yes, a block of portland-cement based concrete will explode when heated, but a tube made of cement-bound papier mache would maybe be about 20% cement, and the cellulose in its structure would make it somewhat flexible, so I don't think anything would explode, although at operating temperature the paper might pyrolize and disappear.