The Maky-Things Class Post
Feb. 2nd, 2011 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanarillSo the remainder of Makey-things class, after the lathing, went like this:
Milling! It's like lathing, but with even more raw destructive power! Also drilling and broaching. Broaching is a process which shaves little bits of metal out with a series of ever more shaped teeth. Either you pull the teeth through a hole to end up with and interesting-shaped hole, or you use a cookie-cutter kind of broach to get an interesting-shaped outside. We used the second to make a perfectly square block. Then we used the drill to make a hole which was slightly smaller than the lathed part. Using an arbor press, we forced the lathed part in the hole anyway, and thus I have the single most expensive pencil holder I will ever own (considering the cost of the class and all). It holds one pencil.
Oxyfuel welding! This is when you take a flammable gas, in our case acetylene, and mix it with oxygen, and set it on fire. This is a very hot fire. You use it to melt the metal around the weld site. Sometimes, you add extra "filler" material to make an even stronger weld by melting that into the weld puddle. I was kind of crap at it, and all my welds broke long before the 8000 lbs mark, which they were supposed to stand, but oh well. Can't be perfect at everything the first time.
Stick welding! A form of welding which uses an electric arc to melt the weld metals together. It's not quite MIG welding, since you use 18" long pieces of flux-coated metal, but the concept is the same. If you do it right, it sounds just like very loud bacon cooking, I kid you not.
Plastics! I made a Mickey-mouse shaped mold out of vacuum-formed plastic! You take a sheet of plastic, and put it over a little figurine, and suck it down so it's against the figure. Then you cool it, so it's a negative image. We can use it to make large Mickey-mouse shaped chocolates. Also, a dish out of injection molded plastic, but it had little air bubbles in it and was misshapen. I gave that one to Lura, who will do . . . something . . . with it. Possibly use it as an ashtray, it's about the right size and shape.
Today, frankly, sucked. I am still anemic but less so, which is okay, but my liver enzymes are WAY elevated. Not quite Hep C levels of elevated, but enough that my crappy doctor wanted me to see a gastroenterologist immediately. Which I did . . . so that he could send me for a test which will take a week for results. This is my BITCHPLZ face: -_-.
Also, crappy doctor, when I ask "Why does liver agitation cause the level of transaminases to go up?" I am not asking why the enzyme levels go up in a general way. I am asking why the specific class of enzymes known as transaminases, which are the proteins that either make or break down amino acids, go up when the liver is stressed. Is the liver suddenly making a crapton of extra amino acids for some reason, or is it digesting proteins? If so, where are the proteins coming from? If you do not know, then just tell me. But don't keep saying it is how the liver responds to damage, you just told me that, thanks much. (I realize most of the time you have to deal with not-biochemists for whom that is enough of an answer. I am not one of them. Deal with it.)
Someone out there pat me on the back and sympathize please. I need to feel vindicated.
Milling! It's like lathing, but with even more raw destructive power! Also drilling and broaching. Broaching is a process which shaves little bits of metal out with a series of ever more shaped teeth. Either you pull the teeth through a hole to end up with and interesting-shaped hole, or you use a cookie-cutter kind of broach to get an interesting-shaped outside. We used the second to make a perfectly square block. Then we used the drill to make a hole which was slightly smaller than the lathed part. Using an arbor press, we forced the lathed part in the hole anyway, and thus I have the single most expensive pencil holder I will ever own (considering the cost of the class and all). It holds one pencil.
Oxyfuel welding! This is when you take a flammable gas, in our case acetylene, and mix it with oxygen, and set it on fire. This is a very hot fire. You use it to melt the metal around the weld site. Sometimes, you add extra "filler" material to make an even stronger weld by melting that into the weld puddle. I was kind of crap at it, and all my welds broke long before the 8000 lbs mark, which they were supposed to stand, but oh well. Can't be perfect at everything the first time.
Stick welding! A form of welding which uses an electric arc to melt the weld metals together. It's not quite MIG welding, since you use 18" long pieces of flux-coated metal, but the concept is the same. If you do it right, it sounds just like very loud bacon cooking, I kid you not.
Plastics! I made a Mickey-mouse shaped mold out of vacuum-formed plastic! You take a sheet of plastic, and put it over a little figurine, and suck it down so it's against the figure. Then you cool it, so it's a negative image. We can use it to make large Mickey-mouse shaped chocolates. Also, a dish out of injection molded plastic, but it had little air bubbles in it and was misshapen. I gave that one to Lura, who will do . . . something . . . with it. Possibly use it as an ashtray, it's about the right size and shape.
Today, frankly, sucked. I am still anemic but less so, which is okay, but my liver enzymes are WAY elevated. Not quite Hep C levels of elevated, but enough that my crappy doctor wanted me to see a gastroenterologist immediately. Which I did . . . so that he could send me for a test which will take a week for results. This is my BITCHPLZ face: -_-.
Also, crappy doctor, when I ask "Why does liver agitation cause the level of transaminases to go up?" I am not asking why the enzyme levels go up in a general way. I am asking why the specific class of enzymes known as transaminases, which are the proteins that either make or break down amino acids, go up when the liver is stressed. Is the liver suddenly making a crapton of extra amino acids for some reason, or is it digesting proteins? If so, where are the proteins coming from? If you do not know, then just tell me. But don't keep saying it is how the liver responds to damage, you just told me that, thanks much. (I realize most of the time you have to deal with not-biochemists for whom that is enough of an answer. I am not one of them. Deal with it.)
Someone out there pat me on the back and sympathize please. I need to feel vindicated.
