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

pontiac428

pontiac428

John Newman
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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.

 
Definitely a case of "everything AND the kitchen sink" when he throws the wheelbarrow into the melt :)
They need to ask Santa for a humongous dividing head for Christmas, they wouldn't have to re-fixture the gear for each tooth
Heck I could build them one, if they buy the stepper motor LOL
 
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They formed it up on sand set with sodium silicate. Very neat way of doing that. CO2 cures it to glass. I've seen it used for solid cores, but not like this before.

I have a lot of respect for these guys. Hard dirty work, but they cast some amazing parts. Even the machining process (tools, tooling) looks rough, but they still get it done nicely.

You ever see the video of they company in Europe that makes the chech bells? That's na neat process too.
 
I finished up part 2 with this morning's coffee. I've watched some other videos on forging and other frontier metalwork, this stuff is just mesmerizing to watch. I think as soon as I find a better term than "3rd world", I'll start a 3rd world machinist thread just in case anyone else enjoys this stuff too.

@dkemppai I was wondering about the sand, it's obviously not green sand or oiled foundry sand, it appears clean and set up hard. Silica gel makes sense!
 
It's amazing what determined people can accomplish. I read a Viet Nam era piece on a 1911 pistol in 45ACP captured from the VC that was totally made by hand with files and scrapers. None of the parts were interchangable with a GI 45 and there was no rifling, but John Browning would be hard pressed to tell the difference visually.
 
epanzella said:
It's amazing what determined people can accomplish. I read a Viet Nam era piece on a 1911 pistol in 45ACP captured from the VC that was totally made by hand with files and scrapers. None of the parts were interchangable with a GI 45 and there was no rifling, but John Browning would be hard pressed to tell the difference visually.
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No rifling?
Ask Napoleon about smooth bore. I wonder how hard the metal was? Able to stand the blast pressures etc.
 
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