Tag: metal

And you thought you had problems…

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On my never-ending quest for interesting news relevant to metal fabrication machinery and the like, I have stumbled upon news of a woman who has a skin condition unlike any other. Her name is Noorsyaidah, and she lives in Indonesia. According to her own testimony, she has been growing metal wires out of her skin for the last 19 years. Not only this, but they seem to have a mind of their own: when her sister tries to trim them, they shrink back and grow out of some other body part instead.

According to several terribly written articles containing lots of opinions and more typos than actual facts, she has consulted with 4 different medical professionals who all claim to be stumped for a diagnosis. She also has several x-rays of her insides, which show lots of metal wires inside her stomach area. It should be noted that the x-rays do not appear to be fakes.

What these “scholarly” articles lack in actual information,they more than make up for with disgusting photographs of the woman’s chest and stomach areas, which are riddled with rusty-looking metal wires poking out of them. You can see from the photos that the wires irritate her skin and she does not appear to be having much fun at all. If you absolutely must see these photos, click here.

It seems that in her own country, the general consensus for her condition is that she was cursed and this is all the result of a bad (as in downright lousy) spell that was put on her. Due to the fact that the spell was cast over 20 years ago, it has had plenty of time to work itself into her system and so, according to professional experts on these matters, it will take a long time for any counter-spells to work their own magic.

Although the woman swears that her “condition” is not self-inflicted, it’s hard to not observe the obvious fact that the metal wires only seem to appear in places that she would be able to stick them into all by herself. And although the x-rays showing the wires in her stomach really do appear to be genuine, does that really prove that she is a human metal fabrication factory? The general assumption is that the wires are growing out of her skin, but no one seems particularly interested in proving or even challenging this, especially when an explanation as compelling as witchcraft provides such a ready answer to this mystery.

I did a little research of my own to see if someone would be able to swallow a bunch of metal wires without keeling over and dying along the way. Swallowing a few metal wires is nothing compared to what I found. A 52 year-old woman in Holland by the name of Margaret Daalman went to the hospital complaining of a stomach ache, and the x-ray there revealed the presence of 78 forks and spoons in her stomach. On being questioned about this, she admitted that she had a strong urge to swallow cutlery and that this had been a private hobby of hers for kind of a long time.

If I knew I had 78 forks and spoons inside my stomach, I wouldn’t wait for a hospital doctor to give me a diagnosis on my bellyache. But that’s just me. It definitely redefines the meaning of “please pass me a fork, dear”.

In any case, if the Indonesian woman truly is cursed, then maybe her curse is someone else’s blessing. If she does in fact grow metal wires out of her body, then maybe some forward-thinking entrepeneur in the metal fabrication industry could pay her a salary and then regularly harvest her metal wires. With a little bit of modern technology on her side, she could be a self-regenerating paperclip factory. This might sound a bit callous, but personally, I think it would be a better job for her than taking care of young children, which is what she currently does for a living.

Remember – in the words of Robert South: “Problems can become opportunities when the right people come together.”

Now Hiring: Asteroid Miners

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A long, long time ago, in a galaxy we are all familiar with, asteroids rained all the gold, cobalt, iron, manganese, nickel,osmium, molybdenum, palladium, rhenuim, rhodium, ruthenium and tungsten that we will ever mine from this planet, onto the earth’s crust.

Based on known earthly reserves and growing rates of consumption in developing countries, it has been speculated that metal reserves essential for modern industry, including antimony, zinc, tin, silver, indium, gold and copper, could be depleted from Earth within the next 50-60 years.

For the above two reasons alone, I am willing to bet that international space exploration is about to take off. Why? Because at the rate we’re going, in a few years, you will no longer be able to look down for metals: you’ll have to look up. Space exploration is going to expand fiercely and rapidly because there is going to be an exceedingly practical reason for it that is far more interesting to most of us than pure science: namely, competition, and huge amounts of potential profits. Soon, we will be going to go back to the source for metal resources – and that will take us into outer space, into a fantastically interesting subject known as asteroid mining.

Near-earth asteroids are considered the most immediate likely candidates for asteroid mining. At 1997 prices, a small metallic asteroid no wider than 1 mile across was calculated to contain more than $20 trillion worth industrial and precious metals– so at today’s prices, it would be even significantly more than that. As another point of comparison, a 1 km-wide asteroid would probably contain more than 2 billion metric tons of iron-nickel ore, which would be more than twice the global annual production of iron ore in 2004. That doesn’t even include whatever precious metals it would also contain.

Apparently, there are three different ways of mining asteroids:

1. Bringing back raw material from the asteroid for processing on earth;

2. Processing the asteroidal materials on-site, thus reducing transportation costs and possibly even producing fuel propellant from the raw materials for the trip home; or (my favorite):

3. Dragging the entire asteroid to a safe orbit around the moon or Earth, so that the majority of its materials can be used and not wasted. It looks like pretty much all you need to know about asteroid retrieval methods, or “catching”, can be found in this handy Wikipedia link: Methods for asteroid retrieval or catching . Although probably a tad on the expensive side, it could be a far more interesting weekend hobby than fishing. At the very least, it brings new meaning to the idea of a pet rock.

What is interesting to note is that, although it is conceded that the cost of asteroid retrieval still outweighs their market value and that at current commodity prices and space transportation costs it is not expected to attract private investment, it doesn’t say anywhere that the technology needed to do this doesn’t exist. In other words, it can be done. And even if you or I can’t afford it right at this moment, it will be done. If you decide to get serious about this, it seems that all you need to know about the subject is available on Wikipedia. And remember, when the headlines about asteroid retrieval start circulating more regularly, you can say you heard about it right here, on the C Marshall Fabrication Machinery website blog, first.

-Anja Wulf

Whatever you need, copper’s got it!

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“Find a penny, pick it up. All day long you’ll have good luck”.

The use of copper in metal manufacturing goes back further than any other metal, except for iron and gold. Not only is it an excellent conductor, but it is pretty, malleable, easy to work with and even has anti-microbial properties, making it far better suited for plumbing than, say, lead pipes. And although the use of copper for pipes continues to this day, copper pipes are kind of boring to read about unless you are in the business of selling, manufacturing, buying or stealing them (and yes, the rate of copper theft continues to rise proportionately to its steady increases in value – which is an alarming rate, as far as its theft goes).

Much more interesting are the many magical properties copper has been attributed with over the last 11,000 years or so. It seems that pretty much any disorder, ailment or unwanted condition can be improved or cured with copper. The fact that copper does in fact have anti-microbial properties, works well as a fungicide, and is even an essential trace nutrient makes its magical claims even more interesting, since some of them may very well have some sort of basis in fact and science.

If everything written on the subject is to be believed, a partial list of copper’s magical and curative properties include the following:

  • Copper is the metal of Aphrodite, or Venus, depending on which name you prefer. Either way, copper is the metal of the Goddess of love, beauty and fertility. If you wear copper on the opposite side of your dominant hand, it can be a very effective love charm – especially when combined with emeralds (you know a particularly clever woman must have thought up that last part!)
  • Fact: copper is an effective spermicide. The majority of IUD’s, the oldest and most effective birth control method on earth, are made of copper even to this day. It could be reasoned that if copper’s ability to prevent pregnancy was known about thousands of years ago, this may have strengthened if not given rise to the association of copper with love and fertility.
  • As early as 2400 BC, ancient Egyptians used copper to sterilize wounds and drinking water, as well as for the treatment of headaches, burns and itching. Based on copper’s actual properties, chances are that these treatments were in fact effective.
  • Around 400 BC, Hippocrates used copper to treat leg ulcers associated with varicose veins. If I knew how, and if I had varicose veins, I’d try it out right now, but alas, all I have to offer is this titillating factoid.
  • Ancient Aztecs fought sore throats by gargling with copper mixtures. This gives me hope that copper may also help prevent the end of the world, as predicted by the Aztec calendar to occur in 2012. I’m not exactly sure how this all connects or if there’s any logic to it, but then again the Aztecs were very mysterious in general. In any case, gargling copper on the End of Days can’t hurt, and may actually prevent Armageddon. Any takers?
  • Many arthritis sufferers wear copper bracelets to relieve pain.
  • Copper is said to have a revitalizing mental effect by stimulating energy flows, thereby overcoming lethargy. It is also said to improve one’s powers of communication, channeling, cleansing and self esteem.
  • Physically, copper is said to improve blood circulation, increase energy, detoxify, reduce inflammation, stabilize metabolism and improve oxygen use.
  • Anyone who takes themselves seriously while waving sticks around in the air and casting spells will tell you that copper is like, totally the best metal for magic wands, because it is an excellent conductor of “all different types” of energy.
  • If you do happen to be in possession of a magical copper wand, you can use it to heal any part of your body by touching it with copper, which will “re-balance” that part of your body and make it all better. This may possibly be almost as effective as when mommy kissed your boo-boo and made it better, but sadly I was unable to find a single scientific study to back this up.
  • Pure copper can be worn to prevent illness and to encourage healing in general because it balances the polarities in one’s body. Anyone worthy of the title “Wiccan” knows this to be indisputable fact. Be warned, however, that a possible side effect can be that you also turn into a turbo-charged version of Austin Powers – with or without the additional supplementation of emeralds.
  • Copper also attracts good luck and money. Proof of this is a fact that every American child knows: “If you find a penny, pick it up. All day long you’ll have good luck” (a long time ago, when our government wasn’t yet bankrupt, pennies were originally made of 100% copper. If the government had picked up pennies instead of thrown them away, it wouldn’t be broke). So if you really play your cards well, you will be lucky in love, super healthy, your polarities will be balanced and you’ll be filthy rich – in which case you’ll probably lose the copper and trade it in for lots of gold. And diamonds. And a Rolex or two. Because one Rolex is never enough to keep you balanced and happy and successful and lucky in love and rich…

That sums up some but not all of the magical properties of copper. By now, I have pretty much talked myself into taking a trip to the plumbing section of the nearest hardware store so I can buy a copper “amulet” for my own personal use. So if you see someone running around with a copper mechanical sleeve clamp hanging off their neck, you’ll know who started that trend.

-Anja Wulf

Gold: the original “Chick Magnet”

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Yummy, delightful gold

Gold has been making headlines again recently, due mainly to the fact that as the rest of the economy crashes and burns, the value of gold just keeps going higher. At over $1800 per troy ounce, gold is once again proving that when things go south, gold goes north.

But why is it that gold is so precious? Although it has plenty of uses, on a purely practical level, iron, copper or aluminum are far more practical. If you were stuck on a desert island with only one type of of metal to rely on for your survival, chances are you wouldn’t pick gold.

Of course, the fact that gold is rare plays greatly into its role as a “precious” metal. The world’s holdings of gold accumulated through all recorded history only amount to around 120,000 metric tons. Compare this to the fact that in 1995, the average hourly output of steel was 10,500 tons. Whereas the average increase in the world’s gold supply is only around 2000 tons a year, American steel increases by around 10,500 tons per hour. Another way to look at this is that the totality of all available gold would fit inside a cube measuring 60 cubic feet. Its value would be more than $1.4 trillion.

It makes sense then that gold became the first form of actual money. But this still does not fully explain why it has always been considered to be so very precious. Independent of location, culture or time, gold has always been revered by every culture that had any access to it as an extremely coveted commodity.

This could have something to do with the inherent properties of gold. Gold is the most malleable and ductile of all metals. One ounce of gold can be drawn into a wire 50 miles long, or hammered into a thin translucent sheet 1000 times thinner than a piece of paper. Gold does not tarnish or corrode. Gold also occurs in a virtually pure state, whereas most other metals need to be extracted from ore-bodies. Gold has been found nearly everywhere in the world. Because it was first found in streams and rivers, the Egyptians thought it was a particularly dense combination of water and sunlight. The Incas called it “tears of the sun”. It is generally understood to be the first metal ever collected or used by humans. Its association with gods, immortality, power and wealth are common throughout history and to this day.

But this still does not explain why, in every place that gold was found, the humans decided it was very valuable. On a purely practical level, gold is not strong enough to use for weapons or utensils. Culturally speaking, this is in fact baffling, since the perceived value of nearly everything throughout history can be traced to its practical uses. With that in mind, why wasn’t iron or bronze the first form of money? After all, the discovery and use of iron helped create a quantum leap in human civilization, literally taking us out of the Stone Age.

The earliest texts and archaeological evidence prove that gold was not used for tools. In fact they prove the opposite: the first uses of gold were very similar to its predominant modern use: gold was used for ornamentation; or, in other words, jewelry. This makes sense, since both its properties and its appearance lend itself to such a thing. If I was a Stone Age Babe, I would definitely prefer a gold pendant over one made out of bones or teeth.

Historically and archaeologically, the common denominator of the uses of gold in human cultures has always come down to one simple concept: aesthetics. Gold is beautiful. Above its properties or its scarcity, this is the predominant fact that helps to explain its consistent role as a truly precious commodity. Turning it into money or a standard for world currencies came as an afterthought. Its original allure was the same that it has always been since: gold is really pretty. This also helps to explain why the concept of gold has also been equated with vanity and with greed: the concept of beauty has also been confused with these traits.

So call it vanity, or call it art appreciation. What is interesting here is that the role of gold throughout human civilization shows there is more at work in the human psyche than simply practical considerations. While it could be argued that the irreducible minimum of an appreciation for the “finer things in life” still aids our basest survival needs such as mating and procreation, this simply doesn’t jive with the subjective reality of our ongoing love affair with beauty. And while concepts of beauty have changed and varied through time and different cultures, gold seems to be one of those things that every human group has found to be very lovely indeed.

It could then be argued that the most valuable things throughout civilization, and indeed the human experience, are not the weapons and materials of war and “progress”, but rather those things that inspire us, even “for no good reason”.

It is nice to acknowledge this, as it proves that there is more that drives us than just our base animal instincts, as some would have us believe.

-Anja Wulf

Mercury: the strangest metal of all

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Quicksilver

1. another name for mercury

2. rapid or unpredictable in movement or in change: a quicksilver temper

[Old English, from cwicu alive (see quick) = seolfer silver. Literally, “live silver”

 

When I was in high school, there was a rumor that a kid several years ahead of us had committed suicide by sucking the mercury out of a thermometer. When a rumor is scary enough, you don’t bother to verify it, you just duck your head and run in the opposite direction. Ever since then, like many people, I have had a strange fascination with the substance.

Mercury is a study in contradictions. It is known for its toxic properties but has been prescribed through the ages as a healing substance; it is a heavy metal that is actually a liquid at room temperature. Mercury has always been revered for its shape-shifting properties that was considered the primordial metal, and the key that could unlock all the mysteries of alchemy.

Mercury shines like a mirror, it conducts electricity and in spite of the fact that it’s a liquid, it is a metal. In fact, it is a heavy metal, 13.5 times more dense than water.

This means that you could build a reflecting pool out of mercury. It has in fact been done. A mercury fountain was constructed for the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, and in Spain large reflecting pools were filled with mercury to allow Caliphs to gaze at their reflections.

This also means that if you tried to jump into a pool filled with mercury, your bones would actually break. However, if you stepped into it, you could walk on its surface, sinking only about an inch with each step. If you were so inclined, you could also use it as a surface for billiards or a pool table, since the balls would only sink a fraction of an inch.

Mercury vapors are extremely toxic. This became evident in the 19th century when the makers of felt hats, who used mercuric nitrate in their trade, started exhibiting a huge array of strange behaviors. Hence the term, “mad as a hatter”.

Mozart may have died from mercury poisoning as well, at the young age of 35. Not because of making hats, but because like many rock stars, he was a major womanizer. Syphilis was common in his time, and the only treatment for it consisted of large doses of mercury, administered in a variety of ways. Because mercury has anti-bacterial properties, it may have even worked as a cure – unfortunately, at the loss of the patient. If you’ve ever heard of the saying “a night in the arms of Venus leads to a lifetime on Mercury”, now you know where it comes from.

Mercury has many valuable uses. It is used in electrical devices around the world. Despite its toxicity, there is little evidence that its use for dental fillings have done any harm. Mercury compounds exist even in modern medicine. It also happens to dissolve aluminum. In World War II, it was rumored that allied spies spread a paste of mercury on the wings and fuselages of German fighter planes, causing them to fall apart in midair.

As far as whether mercury from a thermometer could kill someone, the best answer I could find to this question is “no”. Apparently it would just go right through someone and come out the other end. Whether that amount would be enough to cause psychiatric disturbances is a moot point, since you’d have to be crazy to try it in the first place.

-Anja Wulf

The most popular screw in the world

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Pretty much anything that can be bought or sold is available in the US. With a few notable exceptions, including medieval castles. You have to to to Europe (preferably) to see those.

If you do travel to Europe as a tourist, chances are that you will end up touring at least one medieval castle. They are truly fascinating places to visit for children or grown-ups alike. Of course, the best part of any castle tour are the dungeons. If you’re like most tourists, you’ll visit a castle that still has a reasonably well-equipped torture chamber. Completely morbid and jarring to see, but also highly memorable.

Inside the castle you will nearly always find a display of ancient medieval weapons and armor, some of the finest historical examples of metalworking in the world, to look at and sometimes even to touch. The intricacy of the chain mail is mind-boggling. The sharpness and geometric perfection of the swords, daggers, spears, lances and other pokey metal objects is impressive even by modern standards.

If you bother to read the little printed signs under these displays, you can learn more about these weapons and suits of armor: in particular, their specific uses, and when and where they were made. After a while, you might notice a predictable pattern: the majority of these metal items were made in Germany. This does not necessarily mean that most weapons and suits of armor were made in Germany (although this too could be argued); but it definitely means that the majority of ancient metal weapons to have survived more or less intact to this day were made in Germany (or its historical geographic and cultural equivalent).

Even to this day, Germany makes some of the finest blades and knives on the planet. Witness Wusthoff and J.A. Henckels, to name only a few. The history of metal and metalworking is so entwined with Germany that even the word “smith” can be traced back to a prehistoric German word which means “worker or craftsman”. Incidentally, that same word (“Schmied”) is still alive and well in the German language to this day, and it still means the same thing. Just another testament to the consistency of metalworking and metallurgy throughout Germanic history.

One reason that German metalworking gained such a foothold in medieval times was by revolutionizing plate armor. Although plate armor had been in use since ancient Greek and Roman times, it didn’t evolve much at all until the early 1500’s, with the German production of so-called Nuremberg armors, many of which are some of the best examples of incredible workmanship and beautiful design in the metalworking industry to this day.

As a result of this quantum leap in plate armor evolution, it naturally followed that weaponry had to be improved, if it were to have any chance of penetrating the Nuremberg armor suits. This “theory of natural evolution” as applied to the metal industry seems to go a long way in explaining Germany’s consistent history of excellence and predominance in the area of metalworking.

Although the slotted head screw still exists practically unchanged to this day, it was finally eclipsed in the early 20th century, by a new type of screw invented by a Henry F. Phillips. After a successful trial run on the 1936 Cadillac, the Phillips screw became successfully entrenched in the American auto industry and just took off from there. By the beginning of World War II, the Phillips head screw had become and still remains “the most popular screw in the world”, as Wikipedia puts it.

You had to read the whole thing, but now you know how I came up with the title of this article. In any case, I hope you found it informative, relevant and entertaining.

-Anja Wulf

An update on Magnetic Boy

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It must be something in the cyberspace ether, but two weeks after I wrote my last blog article on “Magnetic Boy”, our not-so-little friend from Croatia seems to be creating a new internet sensation. Thanks perhaps to the fact the he’s now a few years older and his body mass has increased as well, to disproportionately high levels in fact, “Magnetic Boy”is now said to be able to get up to 25 kilos of metal to stick to him at any given time. Do a quick Google search and in short order you will find an epic recent photo of him wearing a household iron on his bare chest, which I can only hope wasn’t on at the time. I bet he’s really good at finding the car keys as well.

There are also sites and medical experts stepping up to the plate to dismiss him as a fake. What is interesting is they aren’t disputing the claim that metal objects can stick to this kid. They aren’t saying that any of the photos or videos circulating of him are doctored or photo-shopped. Nevertheless, they are claiming that for the past three years, his parents have been part of a long-term scheme to sell him out as a circus freak. (On this note, I’m including a photo in this article of him with his family. They look like real city slickers, don’t they? The kind that would definitely have it in them to create a long-term hoax that is sweeping the cyberworld by storm. Real snake-oil salesmen, the lot of them).

To reiterate, none of the “experts” who are weighing in on Magnetic Boy are stating that any of his magnetic powers are fake. Instead, they are claiming that ANY human is capable of sticking metal objects to their body. According to the naysayers, any human can place a metal object onto a part of their body which is smooth and hairless and get it to stick there. A Facebook group called “We are all Magneto Boy” shows photos of different people doing just that. Apparently it is just as simple as taking a metal object and placing it against a smooth and hairless part of your own body.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Croatia, Magnetic Boy’s repertoire of superhuman powers has now also expanded to include the power to heal by touch, which is also being attributed to his magical magnetic properties. According to his own grandpa, Magnetic Boy cured his stomachache simply by placing his hands on his stomach. According to his grandpa, Magnetic Boy’s hands emitted a powerful heat and his stomachache was cured. I am definitely willing to concede that grandpa did not have an entirely unbiased point of view, and that his own strong belief that his grandson had the power to heal him may have been enough to do just that.

With that said, I hope that by now I have given you personally enough time to try to stick some metal onto your body.

If you haven’t already tried to do so by now, then I am frankly surprised and a little bit disappointed. I admit that as soon as I read the claim that any human can do this, I grabbed the next available metal object – in this case, a fork – and tried to glue it to my face. And just to provide a bit more context, I happened to be sitting in a very pretty little waterfront tapas restaurant at the time. Luckily for me, I was already a paying customer by then, so the proprietor didn’t ask me to leave when he saw me do so.

If you haven’t tried it yourself by now, then you must be very curious if it worked. If you have tried it yourself by now, then you already know the answer for yourself.

However, I assume that if you are reading this, you are somehow already involved in the metal industry and you make a habit of surrounding yourself with large metal objects on a regular basis.

So rather than tell you if it worked or not, I will instead leave you with a (rhetorical) question: in your daily business operations, have you noticed a propensity in yourself to bring your work home with you – literally? Do you regularly find yourself peeling large oil tanks or ship hulls or snow plows or giant steel cylinders off your chest on your drive home from work?

I didn’t think so.

Although I can’t speak for all y’all, Magnetic Boy still has my vote. And until I figure out a way to stick a fork to my face that doesn’t actually involve stabbing myself with it, he will continue to have my vote.

And, if this article inspired you to actually try sticking a metal object to your body, I would REALLY appreciate it (if only to satisfy my own curiosity) if you left a comment that informed us all of the results.

-Anja Wulf

A Zillion Pounds of Floating Metal

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Not a well-known fact but nonetheless a true one: the car industry recycles more materials than any other industry on the planet. This is because metal is an excellent resource to recycle, and extremely cost-effective to do so as well. If it didn’t make sense financially to recycle all the metal in old cars, the auto industry wouldn’t be doing it.

Not so, it appears, with the shipbuilding industry. In spite of the fact that there are many old steel ships and boats containing thousands and thousands of tons of recyclable steel and other materials, no one seems to be doing anything with them. This may have something to do with the cost of transporting old ships to ports and salvage yards where the recycling can actually occur. After all, loading an old ship onto the back of a truck isn’t exactly feasible. I don’t know where they keep the ship recycling facilities, but they don’t appear to be anywhere near where they would need to be in order to take care of the steel wrecks that sit in the water. At least not around where I am right now, which is in a lagoon on a Caribbean island.

And sit in the water they do. Here in the Caribbean,these wrecked steel ships and boats are all over the place. Destroyed by hurricanes, age or some other calamity, they sit and they sit for years in the same spot that they washed up in. Old oil tankers, fishing boats and other industrial hulks dot the waterscape in every direction. Some of them get taken over by humans, who live on them illegally. You can tell which ones harbor human life, because they will have a small dinghy tied up next to them. The humans try to stay low-key about living there, since it is technically illegal, but no one really seems to care. These boats are beyond salvageable, and aside from hosting abundant sea life beneath them for crabbers and fishermen, they no longer have any use.

I didn’t do any internet research to write this article, for two reasons: one, I have no internet connection from where I am right now, which is in somewhere in the Caribbean; and two, everything I’ve written about here comes from what I’ve been observing with my own eyes. If you don’t believe me, go to any major port, anchorage or lagoon in the Caribbean or elsewhere in the non-US world, and you will be able to observe exactly what I am writing about. It’s amazing to me that from where I sit at this moment, I can see literally a million tons of recyclable steel and metal, simply rotting away in the water. These boats, which cost millions to build, are simply beyond dead.

I’d be curious to know what can be done with them, or who they can be of use to, or what can be done to get them out of the water and give them new life somehow, even if it’s by melting them down and starting from scratch, which I believe is the only realistic way to get any use out of them at this point. Unfortunately, that information would require an internet connection to find out. If any of you metal industry people have any ideas, let me know. And if for any of you, these old ships are a potential commodity, you can find them in abundance in St. Martin. The rule of the high seas is this: if you find it and it’s not anchored, it’s yours to take. If no one claims it after 90 days in your possession, it’s yours to keep. Any my hot tip for the day is this: not all of these big boats appear to be anchored.

-Anja Wulf

The biggest piece of metal in the world

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I’ve been curious for some time to find out what the largest metal object in the world is. By “largest metal object in the world”, I mean an object that is formed out of solid metal and is one contiguous piece of homogeneous metal. In other words, search results that yielded things like “largest metal sculpture in the world” don’t count, in my opinion. Additionally, I was looking for something that served an actual purpose, not just something to look at.

I still haven’t found a contemporary answer to this question. But that’s because I got sidetracked. Without question, I have learned what the largest piece of cast metal in the world was – back in 1893.

The USA was in a severe depression, marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures. Meanwhile, plans were underway to celebrate the 400 year anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of America, in Chicago, and in typical American style, a minor glitch such as the worst depression to date in the US wasn’t going to get in its way. The name of the game called upon civil engineers to build something truly unique that would demonstrate the possibilities of modern engineering in America, similar to what the Eiffel Tower had done for the French.

One man in the audience took to the challenge right away. His name was George Washington Gale Ferris, and his specialty was building steel bridges. Soon to become known as somewhat of a freak (“the Man with the Wheels in his Head”), he had a plan to build a giant wheel that people could sit in, just for fun. And sure enough, in spite of the fact that his idea had no practical value whatsoever (besides making history in the Columbus Fair) and that it required a lot of money, Ferris’ enthusiasm was catching, and he raised the money to make his plan into a reality.

On its completion, Ferris’ Wheel weighed 2,079,884 pounds. The axle alone, forged by Bethlehem Iron Company (later to become Bethlehem Steel), weighed 89,320 pounds. Powered by 2 steam engines, it could carry up to 2160 passengers at one time. It was a colossus; and without question, it was the largest piece of cast metal in the world. Most notably, although it can be argued that it was built for fame and glory, its actual purpose was pure fun.

The Ferris Wheel became a huge overnight sensation, eventually spawning plenty of stories and legends about people falling off the Wheel, etc. Although untrue, these stories took a toll on the Wheel’s popularity, and soon only few people could be seen riding on the Wheel. This wondrous feat of engineering, which had required over $400,000 to build in 1893, was sold at auction in 1906 for $1800. A decision was made to take it down, and on May 11, 1906, the Ferris Wheel was blown to bits by a “monster charge of dynamite”.

George Ferris, the inventor of the Ferris Wheel, didn’t do much better. Similar to many contemporary Hollywood overnight celebrities, he became severely depressed by the looming threat of bankruptcy and his own loss of fame. He died of typhoid fever on November 22, 1896. Saddest of all, his ashes remained at a Pittsburgh crematorium for over a year, waiting for someone to take possession of them. By then, it could be said that the party was definitely over. Nevertheless, no one can take away the fact that Mr. Ferris was on of those rare birds who was crazy and brilliant enough to able to take those wheels out of his head and create something that brought a sense of joy and wonder to millions of people.

-Anja Wulf