OT: Clean steel?

From: John Lawson <jpl15_at_panix.com>
Date: Thu Oct 17 11:09:01 2002

On Thu, 17 Oct 2002, Sellam Ismail wrote:

>
> There are two rooms in the ACCRC building that are filled with huge old
> (useless) refrigeration systems. Tons of steel. We'd like to get the
> rooms cleared out so we can use them.

  Athough I can't comment with certainty on the backround radiation
aspects of your post - It *does* seem a tad ironic that those beautiful
old upright-cylinder compressors have to go for scrap... though the
amount of work involved in preserving one would be mind-boggling for
amateurs. I do know folks who collect and preserve old Gasoline and
Diesel engines from the turn of (last) century, and many of those machines
are as big (or bigger) and buried in old fatcories in basements and
walled-up rooms.

  I know the compressors can be dismantled down to major subassemblies,
and surely the big motors are worth a bit more than scrap. How much of
that piping is copper, BTW??? And it's BIG stuff, too.


  Also - there might be something to be said for getting twenty 'volunteer
mechanical archaeologists' togehter and renting a couple of cutting
torches.... and it might be a less-exoensive option to consider opening
up a wall and then re-closing it afterward...


>
> A while back we had a brief discussion about "clean steel". "Clean steel"
> is supposedly steel that was smelted before the first atomic bomb tests,
> and therefore contains no radiation. Apparently, air since the first
> atomic bomb test is now filled with background radiation, and because so
> much air is used in the smelting process, a lot of the radiation gets into
> modern steel making it unsuitable for some applications (such as medical
> test equipment where radioactive isotopes are used as part of the
> operation).


   Grain of truth or urban legend? And how can we drag this close to the
Topic... hmmm .. well, the Eniac must have had racks and chassis made of
relatively "clean" steel - while at VCF, I'll bring my funky bright yellow
(brand-new in the box) 1964 Civil Defense Gieger counter and we'll check
this out...


  ;}


  Cheers

John
Received on Thu Oct 17 2002 - 11:09:01 BST