Archive for October, 2006
October 29th, 2006
I have noticed in the last week or so that the website, blogtopsites has been down. My question is, is it because of a change in server or has it been removed altogether. The site is unique in the fact that you can track the amount of traffic that comes to your blog over a one week period giving you a numerical number for the position in that said category. In other words, Metamorphosis was tracking at number 60 to 65 over the week period out of an estimated 400 blogs in the category of Automotive Blogs. Most people wanting to find out about a certain subject will visit this site, making it important to strive for a top 50 placement at least in a hope of finding regular traffic. The top 50 being the first page of this website.
I find it interesting as this gives me an incentive to try and produce more postings with quality information. This in turn will help my readership to grow, resulting in a higher placement in the blog top sites.
I have noticed on the site Problogger which normally tracks at number one for internet blogs, that the link is down proving there must be a problem. If anyone does have an idea as to what’s going on, post a comment to resolve my curiosity.
October 27th, 2006
With the summer rush over and everyone settling into the fall/winter routine, the oil prices have started to drop. The record gas prices set in the summer have started to fall but the consumer has been driven to seek better fuel efficient vehicles to break the dependency of continual refueling and of course to save money. The disposable income that one once had is being eaten by the gas companies as they gloat over their record breaking profits. During the peak of the price increase large SUVs such as the Ford Expedition and the Chevy Suburban were eating gas at a rate of 25 cents a mile, assuming you were getting 12 miles to the gallon, causing a major backlog of SUVs on dealers lots, prompting a reduction in manufacturing output. All of the three domestic manufacturers have lost ground to their Asian counterparts with Toyota being the better equipped to deal with the oil crisis selling record numbers of their Toyota Prius.
The rush is on, every vehicle now being developed by major automotive manufacturers are striving for increased gas milage and the government backed initiative for the hydrogen fuel cell has been touted as the savior for mass transportation.
What does this all mean you may ask?
The beauty of the hydrogen fuel cell is that it resolves a lot of issues that are tied to the petroluem industry such as dependency on petroleum imports, poor air quality, and greenhouse gas emissions. The one hang up is the method in which to safely store and pump the hydrogen to the vehicle on a large scale, together with the infrastructure needed to make this an acceptable alternative.
There are several issues that have to be overcome before the acceptance of the fuel cell as a mainstream alternative. The cost of the system has to be reduced to make it comparable to existing technologies and reliability has to be the same as a conventional vehicle, lasting at least to 150000 miles. The size of the cell needs to be such that the distance per fill equates to 400 miles without compromising space. That being said, I think we are a long way off before hydrogen becomes accepted as a mainstream alternative, unless there is a revelation overnight.
While companies such as GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler research this technology neither one of the domestic motor manufacturers is standing still. Each one is advancing their gasoline engines to push their milage into new territory. Take the new selection of General Motors SUVs, even though the recent trend is to shy away from this type of vehicle, the new Tahoe and Surburban both gain several miles per gallon over the previous 2006 model, quite impressive for a vehicle weighing over 5000lbs.
Needless to say, as the research continues to perfect the hydrogen cell we can expect better milage from future gasoline engines until the break through has been made for a competitive alternative. The dollar sign rules and to create an infrastructure to rival the petroluem monopoly will take considerable doing, leaving the majority of drivers at the mercy of the ever fluctuating gas price.
October 17th, 2006
This recent week has seen me working with Y2Klay first hand and to give you a further insight into the use of this clay I can confirm that the first initial report is very close. The clay does adhere to itself very well, with the use of a good keying surface and just for good measures a heat gun to bring the surrounding surface up to speed. The clay does tend to harden very quickly so if you are going to drag in a surface make sure that the amount added is in small quantities to give yourself a chance to put in the surface.
One of the main issues with this clay is after a few days in the oven it will get a crust that will never blend in with the rest of the billet. As in the normal procedure when packing a model, the billet is kneaded like dough to bring it to an even consistency before applying to the buck. What I am finding is the crust breaks up and gives little hard pieces in an otherwise creamy clay.
This is something that needs to be remembered, only have enough clay in the oven that is going to be used by the next day to avoid this crusting of the surface. This is especially important if adding to an already finished surface, otherwise the hard pieces will give a mottled effect to that surface.
The beauty of the current formula is, the oven can be refilled as clay is removed as it takes approximately three hours at 140°F to reach working temperature.
In this particular instance when the clay has hard crust particles, the clay is only good as a backing up material or underlying material which can then be covered with a fresh layer of clay. In the event of steeling, the crust particle surface gives the impression of going through sulphur particles with that very gritty sound, even though the filler used for this clay is something inert. To obtain the best finish to the model this should be avoided at all costs.
The other aspect of this Y2Klay is the hardness, it is so hard that the tools have to be sharpened more frequently than when using the previous I307 clay. The pressure on finger joints and wrist when packing is quite apparent by the aching of the joints at the end of the day, more so than any other clay that I have used.
I can understand the need for hardness in industrial clays especially as the majority of studios are now using milling machines to realize their first design impression but the modeling bucks still have to be prepared by hands on modelers. The majority of the resulting changes from the first milled model will also be dealt with by skilled clay sculptors. It will be interesting to see what percentage of sculptors suffer from arthritic problems at a later date from the constant loading of industrial clays.
To combat the aching joints I have resorted to a product called Glucosamine Chondroitin MSM by Nature’s Plus which is an advanced therapeutics cream. This is applied by hand and rubbed into the offending joints, it seems to work quite well but that may be purely a state of mind.
I have also found that there is a distinct lack of oils in this clay, making it difficult to soften by hand warming especially when filling small scars or holes in the model surface. It requires an additional trip to the oven or a nearby heat gun to soften it sufficiently. That said, the surfaces do finish crisply and edges hold without crumbling, no doubt time will tell to fully realize the potential of this clay.
