Some time in the 1980's, Mongoose bicycles did a secret late night run in magnesium of the one piece cast aluminum BMX wheels they'd invented. The magnesium was to give their factory team and sponsored riders an edge. The late night secret casting session was because the company didn't have the permits nor the safety equipment to do magnesium casting. Those magnesium Mongoose wheels can fetch a premium price now from collectors.
But not long after, injection molded, reinforced plastic versions of the wheels would make both the aluminum and magnesium versions obsolete. On Tuesday, September 17, 2024 at 09:48:12 AM MDT, gene heskett <ghesk...@shentel.net> wrote: On 9/17/24 07:27, Gregg Eshelman via Emc-users wrote: > I don't know where his shop is in the UK but visiting Alec Steele's > blacksmith shop might be fun. Here's his latest video > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-3l1yau5aU > Wow! He does like to play with fire. Back in about 1954 I was a bench tech at Woodburn Sound in Iowa City. Iowa daytime and building hot rods at night. I took gas welding lessons from a retired Navy guy with a long stack of military welding certificates in his billfold. The big mercury outboard, the big 6, has a magnesium block. Came in with a 3" hole in one of its crank pockets where a broken con rod had come thru it. The outside cowling caught the piece so he had the stuff to plug the hole. Took the block out of the building and 50 feet down the sidewalk, set it up for the weld. Using an oxyacetylene torch, he proceeded to weld the pieces back in place, and had us inspect it, looked like it had been heliarced, it was that clean. The block had been checked, it was warped beyond a simple line boring being able to restore its main bearing alignment. So it was scrap metal. After we had all looked at it we were instructed to put our masks back on, and he lit one corner of it. It lit up that corner of Iowa City, burned thru the sidewalk, the fire dept arrived and he had a hell of a time convincing them to let it burn. Water just supply's the the O to feed the fire. From that point, I have stayed the hell away from magnesium. The City sent him a bill for the sidewalk, but it was 70 yo junk anyway so by the time the bill arrived he had already had a contractor replace that whole block of sidewalk. What was funny was that the city sued him for the damages complete with pix of the hole. When they had presented and it was his turn he laid a pix of the new sidewalk on the judges desk and the judge told the city to go pound sand but in more direct language. Its my understanding that it will burn very vigorously underwater. [...] Cheers, Gene Heskett, CET. _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
