STEM 101 Wood/metal turning, Forging, CNC, Electroplating and everything in between. (ok maybe not everything)

bobarker (40)in #life • 7 years ago (edited)

Hello fellow Steemians!

Turning wood or metal is a truly is a fascinating and exhilarating experience. This ability to "turn" all started with the "mother of all machines", the lathe...

Her roots date all the way back to ancient Egypt, 1300 BC. The first machines were two person machines, one person used a rope to turn, and the other used a tool to cut. Since then many things have changed, we now use two people turn, and one to cut. All jokes aside, the lathe gave birth to many other machines. It truly changed our ability to evolve as humans.

If there is something in you that makes you want to turn a piece of wood at over a thousand RPMs and stab a really sharp object into it (while it is spinning) then woodturning is right up your ally.

Wood and metal turning is easy, you just turn on the machine. Making pieces of art or keeping precise tolerances is much harder game...

(look at that beautiful surface finish! )

Modern CNC's are the cats meow!

Forging is one of the most primitive ways to shape metal. All you need is lots of heat and steel. This is one of the most basic ways to weld. A hammer, forge, chisel, and anvil is almost everything a blacksmith needs to work. You can even replace the anvil with a stump!

I recently came across a few pieces of "very special" Tram cable. I look forward to making a knife out of it.

This is electroplating, it is how to gold plate jewelry and other metals. It is an efficient way to coat metal with other metals. It is also fairly easy to do. This is how they chrome plate rims and many other household items.