| Vicegrip |
12-01-2006 07:45 AM |
One of the Smithsonian museums had a working display of a pulse magnetic former in the early to mid 70s IIRC. It hada clear face so you could see the workings and 2 buttons. You pushed the first button and a thin aluminum tube dropped from a hopper into a tube that had the former coil ringing it. Push the second button and bang, the tube would get subjected to the magnetic pulse that would form a wasp waist in the middle of the tube which would then fall into a bin for the person to retrieve. Cool stuff. Geek that I am for that kind of stuff I had one of the little formed tubes around for years.
Near this device they had a display talking about the density of stuff. Had an aluminum block, a lead block and a depleted urainum block each about the size of a butter stick. The latter was cased in a thin plastic cover. Each was trapped so you could not wander off with it but you could pick them up to see how heavy they were. The Al block was perhaps a pound the lead around 5 to 8 pounds and the DU was almost not able to be lifted. I wonder if they are still there somewhere?
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