Moved a ton...

[vakkotaur]

It was a true 2000 lb weight. Scale shop, go figure. I didn't lift it - that was done by an overhead crane system. But that system isn't motorized for back & forth, just up & down. The work wasn't really in moving the weight so much as getting it started moving while it was hanging, since one must overcome the initial friction of the bearings and those are up by the ceiling so it's done at a lousy angle. No, it's not something I normally do, but I had a minute and the guy who was doing it to calibrate a new design got a short break from it.

A couple things are interesting. A ton is not all that big, physically. A ton of steel, anyway. A steel shelled lead ton is smaller. Maybe a couple feet on a side. I didn't measure it. The other is that such a weight hanging from a crane gives a real feel for inertia. It's not hard to move, but moving it in a specifically desired manner takes some effort. While it was hanging, it was, to me, effectively weightless - but it still had mass. Makes one appreciate what some space work could be like.

Comments

[melskunk.livejournal.com]

Physics in action!

[shelbystripes.livejournal.com]

That sounds cool.

Space work is a bitch from what I can tell. One ton is nothing--imagine trying to grab the Hubble. It's "weightless" but the thing weighs about as much as a bus. I got to play with some zero-G simulations of shuttle work in a scuba tank once; one of the things they had was a satellite, which was balanced to be 'weightless' at that depth (equal overall density to the water at that depth or something like that) but it weighed a couple hundred pounds. That thing was hard to move around. There was no problem with leaving it where it was, there was no danger of it falling, but it took effort to make it budge--and once it got going, it took effort to make it stop.

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

And then you rewarded yourself with a bowl of won ton soup?

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Nope. And if I was to get Chinese soup, I'd get the hot & sour soup.