Making a massive gear from scrapped zipper tabs and bottlecaps in Pakistan

[pontiac428]

You can see a haze of dust (that's full of foundry slag and metal oxides) that extends from the ground and fades overhead. There's no substitute for a clean floor and good ventilation, these guys are all going to have lung disease, lost hearing, and short lives from making their living. That is as long as the safety gods don't strike them down first with a chip in the eye, a broken chain, or a mangled appendage.

I've been to parts of the world where locals rely on this kind of workshop to keep food on the table by fixing vehicles and equipment that look like props from the Ghandi movie. It's hard to look past the humanity of it, but it's definitely not just the creative engineering in these videos that brings out the awe, the apparent hazards are spectacular.

 

[pontiac428]

The hobmeister cutting these gears is wearing safety glasses, and the fact he has two eyes means he's the smart one in the shop. That's why he runs the hobber.

These videos make me feel like I should be able to make anything in my shop, considering the tooling at my disposal. Have I been doing that much less when I have so much more in terms of resources?

 

[Janderso]

You can see a haze of dust (that's full of foundry slag and metal oxides) that extends from the ground and fades overhead. There's no substitute for a clean floor and good ventilation, these guys are all going to have lung disease, lost hearing, and short lives from making their living. That is as long as the safety gods don't strike them down first with a chip in the eye, a broken chain, or a mangled appendage.

I've been to parts of the world where locals rely on this kind of workshop to keep food on the table by fixing vehicles and equipment that look like props from the Ghandi movie. It's hard to look past the humanity of it, but it's definitely not just the creative engineering in these videos that brings out the awe, the apparent hazards are spectacular.

One year in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. I worked in a baseball production facility as a mill right, machinist.
They had a mango chutney plant next door.
Rats the size of cats.
Yeah, not a good working environment.
No bathroom in the baseball plant. I had the runs. Went next door, asked to use the one toilet, did my business. No running water

 

[JC Whitney]

Absolutely fascinating… but in part two the gent working the shaper almost looks like he’s just eyeballing it. I can’t believe that’s the case though - how does he know when he’s hit his marks?

 

[francist]

how does he know when he’s hit his marks?

I wondered the same thing. For the life of me I couldn’t see any layout or scribe marks in what appeared to be a whitish paste around the edge of the teeth. Then I wondered if he was just going by a consistent width of cut on the tool — in theory if the pattern was good and the casting followed the pattern consistently then removing the same width on the cutter tip would reduce the part uniformly (or close to uniformly anyways). No idea if that’s how he actually was doing it though.

-frank

 

[Provincial]

I wondered the same thing. For the life of me I couldn’t see any layout or scribe marks in what appeared to be a whitish paste around the edge of the teeth. Then I wondered if he was just going by a consistent width of cut on the tool — in theory if the pattern was good and the casting followed the pattern consistently then removing the same width on the cutter tip would reduce the part uniformly (or close to uniformly anyways). No idea if that’s how he actually was doing it though.

-frank

In the first video when he is cutting the teeth, at one point you can see a series of punch marks on the outer face that seem to follow the shape of the teeth. Perhaps he refers to them to gauge the final contour.

 

[Nesse1]

There are all kinds of videos like this one out of India and Pakistan. Amazing craftsmanship, in horrendous conditions. One of my favorites is when they built a hearth right there on the sidewalk, to preheat an engine block with a hole though it, before welding. Also, there's a video of a guy rebuilding lead/acid batteries on the sidewalk.

Those guys get their money's worth out of their machine tools. Machines considered too worn to use around here would be workhorses there.

 

[francist]

at one point you can see a series of punch marks on the outer face

You’re right, I see those now!

 

[Janderso]

Absolutely fascinating… but in part two the gent working the shaper almost looks like he’s just eyeballing it. I can’t believe that’s the case though - how does he know when he’s hit his marks?

I was thinking the same thing, he just gives an adjustment at each stroke

 

[DavidR8]

Okay, so this is a YouTube video of some fascinating work being done to produce a fairly large gear under some very austere conditions. I just spent the last half hour with my mouth hanging open and having trouble blinking in awe of this 3rd world capital undertaking. The science of health hazards in the industrial work environment is kinda my jam, and it's given me the opportunity to get close to some really cool stuff, but nothing like this. These guys are next-level. Now, I can quote more chapter and verse from OSHA than Diamond Jim Baker can outta his good book, so you can imagine what a half-hour barrage of this safety violation overload does to the condition of my britches.

The first half of the video is the foundry work, which is really where the magic happens, but the second half is where machine work is. The shaper work is mind blowing. The pile of chips is worth a thousand words itself. I mean, this dude and his kid (yeah, it's his kid- check out some of the looks he gives him) hob out nearly this entire thing by freehanding the handwheels. He does use a radial feed at one point, but the rest of the movements are totally by the seat of his pants. Good stuff here.

Amazing work.
What was/is the purpose of the partial sheet of something put in the bottom?