Upright

Of course, once they've sumped up, the cams are in an oil bath anyway, seems to me; though I never measured how high 3 or 4 liters of oil will sit in the cases. I do know that if you try to kick it over like that it'll hurt your foot even with steel-arched boots. In that case, I assume the flywheel will slosh oil on the cams even if it isn't plumb full. So, I don't think there's much risk of "dry-cam syndrome" ruining good cams. Never happened to me anyway and my MKIII sits for months sometimes between starts.
 
Fast Eddie said:
Please enlighten me as to why you believe that countries with huge industry bases like China and huge technology background like Japan, cannot make decent steel ??
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Speaking from experience of buying £8M worth of steel a year.

In the case of China they concentrated on commodity steels, so your low carbon types that can be sold to many different outlets. A decade ago when I ordered samples I could not not get any of the mills or the distributors to vary the chemistry to suit my requirements so had to order the closest standard steel. 50% of the samples failed and this varied from chemistry to physical properties. Time marches on and they are going into the speciality type steels like higher carbon etc driven by automotive and specialised industries like the military and nuclear. Also of concern was their feast or famine approach, one quarter they flooded the markets with surplus but the next quarter all emails and calls were ignored as the home market paid more and nothing left China.

Japan is as good as Europe and US for steel.
 
kommando said:
Speaking from experience of buying £8M worth of steel a year.

In the case of China they concentrated on commodity steels, so your low carbon types that can be sold to many different outlets. A decade ago when I ordered samples I could not not get any of the mills or the distributors to vary the chemistry to suit my requirements so had to order the closest standard steel. 50% of the samples failed and this varied from chemistry to physical properties. Time marches on and they are going into the speciality type steels like higher carbon etc driven by automotive and specialised industries like the military and nuclear. Also of concern was their feast or famine approach, one quarter they flooded the markets with surplus but the next quarter all emails and calls were ignored as the home market paid more and nothing left China.

Japan is as good as Europe and US for steel.
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I agree 100%.

Trying to deal with / buy from China is a ‘crap shoot’ at the best of times. It is, quite frankly, like trying to deal with a bunch of crooks.

But that’s different to saying they do not have the ability or technology to make something.
 
the subject of high quality steels came up when discussing shutting of some of the Port Talbot blast furnaces. The new electric arc furnaces proposed instead were not capable of same types of steel. it was said.
 
jan nelder said:
the subject of high quality steels came up when discussing shutting of some of the Port Talbot blast furnaces. The new electric arc furnaces proposed instead were not capable of same types of steel. it was said.
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Steel making is a strategic asset, now due to the UK forgetting that, the UK nuclear subs hulls have to use French made steel and the dash to shut down blast furnaces will only make this worse.
 
kommando said:
Steel making is a strategic asset, now due to the UK forgetting that, the UK nuclear subs hulls have to use French made steel and the dash to shut down blast furnaces will only make this worse.
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Yeah but…

Shutting down blast furnaces is good for the environment, right ?

Well, it is until you realise that the demand simply diverts to someone else’s blast furnace…
 
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One area I have wondered about is the effect of radiation on steel in a nuclear reactor. I cannot think how it can be assessed, so risk management can happen proactively. A lot of my work involved making steel for gun barrels.
 
Fast Eddie said:
Yeah but…

Shutting down blast furnaces is good for the environment, right ?

Well, it is until you realise that the demand simply diverts someone else’s blast furnace…
Click to expand...
Quality management began during WW2 when British Standard BS4892 was developed - it eventually morphed into ISO9000. I suggest the British mindset is different to many - it concentrates on attention to detail. Making a quicker profit is not helped that way. 'Fit for purpose' can mean anything'. As far as Australia is concerned, the only way we would ever be able to compete globally is by moving up-market in a quality sense. Quality improvement is a form of value adding. However in Australia, we buy on price. We do not often buy Rolls-Royce motor cars.
 
What really peeves me is the way Chinese products seem to have in-built obsolescence. Our local council tips are full of broken household items. We have a problem with the Chinese steel which has been used in many of our bridges, the workers who weld it seem to believe it is high in boron content. When the Sydney Harbour Bridge was built during the depression, all the steel was imported from Scotland. It was not made in Australia by BHP Newcastle.
 
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One of my previous employer was Lukens Steel most of the reactors in France have our rod dome covers. 90% of our Ohio Class sub bulk heads were made there. There has not been a blast furnace since early 60's. All electric furnaces! There is a process called "vacuum degassing" that purifies the steel. Fun fact we cooked 120 ton of steel every 59 minutes
 

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