[TML] Molding Ships

Mon Oct 1 15:21:46 MDT 2007

The boards would be easy.

Fenolic or Bakelite (TM) analogs applied to thin sheet copper and baked to
set.

Another alternative for low production runs would have been a wire wrap type
system.

As for bread boarding, that would work IF you mean the original meaning of
the term breadboard and not the modern hobbiest meaning which would be
almost as difficult to replicate as modern 4 layer eched circuit board.

I do PCB board layout as part of my job.

I have breadboarded (both types), wire wraped, and worked with Fenolic and
Bakelite(TM) types in the past.  Plus several other monster that I will not
even try to discribe.

You would be very surprised to see how much 60+ year old equipment is still
in commercial use today.

When replacing something with new would cost 1M+ that 1941 AM transmiter
looks pretty good.  Or that 1955 BarChucker automatic lathe.  A modern
replacement would cost 500,000 or more, plus retooling, recoding your parts
inventory from a machine readable paper tape to a modern CNC file, and
retraining your operaters.  In some cases it would be cheaper to fire your
workers and some of the intermediate management and hire newly trained
personel for the new equipment, and then hand them a finished part made by
the old machine and ask them to duplicate it without trying to resolve the
problems with old numeric langauge conversions.  Modern 3D laser scaners and
contact scaners can really cut down on the time to code up a part, and if
you have the original design specifications, with all the critical data, you
can reinvent the wheel faster than you could translate to old control files.
Unless there is already a translation data base for the unit you are
replacing.  There could be, as many companies that survived wrote them as
selling points for their "new versions".

That brings up one other very interest point.  Mechanically many of these
machines have changed very little if at all.  What little change has
happened has been to accomodate electronic controls (mostly positioning
servo motors and sensors)  IF you have a good machine shop and a good modern
computer (even a laptop) an a small store of electronic parts (say what a
ships stores would have or what they could fabricate with an onboard high
tech automated factory, you could quickly convert  a WW1 era factory into a
very modern facility.  Easily equal to most of those in use today.

The improvements would be considerable.  Part tolerences would improve by
several orders of magnatude (engines would run better on less fuel),
quantity of good parts would increase dramaticly, and the number of
defective parts would decrease considerably.  Even a fairly large factory
would need only a very few "space men" to do this if they were good at their
jobs.  The down side would be that the machines built at this factory would
be very difficult to service (if they could be serviced at all) without
parts from this factory, without loosing the improments you have gained.

Example, It would have been almost imposible to build usable jet engines
with a 1920's era machine shop, but with modern controls added to those
machines, it could be doable.  At the least that machine shop could turn out
Spitfires instead of Jennys.  That's the difference of about 200 MPH in
speed and a lot more forepower.  And if the spitfires design was in the
ships data banks, you would not need a prototype and redesign phase and the
lest and best version could be used directly.

Also you could do such things as look up the formula for TNT, C4, Simtex,
non corosive gun powder, fiberglass and it's bonders, kevlar, and lots of
other things that are fairly simple to make, once someone has stubled onto
them in the first place.

Add in some of our modern drugs (particularly antibiotics) and a very few
"space men" could change the balence of power on a low tech world in a very
short time.

What would air dropped nepalm done to the trench warfare of WW1?  Or the
Gatlin gun and helecopter to WW2?

Charles L.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tml-bounces at travellercentral.com
> [mailto:tml-bounces at travellercentral.com]On Behalf Of Bruce Johnson
> Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 3:48 PM
> To: The Traveller Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [TML] Molding Ships
>
>
>
> On Sep 29, 2007, at 6:13 PM, shadow at shadowgard.com wrote:
>
> >
> > Actually, printed circuit boards could have been made well before
> > then. The modern "photo resist" tricks aren't necessary.
> >
> > I did my first board by using a brush to paint on the resist where I
> > wanted it. For mass production, a stencil and roller will work just
> > fine.
>
> A printing press would work just fine. <http://www.handpress.org/>
> see the platen jobber.
>
> > I think the hardest part is getting the copper-clad board.
> >
>
> Suitable materials were invented pretty early. I'd bet laquerware
> would suffice, shellac mixed with wood flour was being used to mold
> items as early as the 1850's. <http://www.bpf.co.uk/bpfindustry/
> History_of_Plastics.cfm>
>
> Gluing the metal to the substrate is old tech.
>
> All said, making the things to solder ON to your 19th century
> circuitboard would be rather lacking...:-) much simpler in those days
> to use a breadboard anyway, since at best you're going to be using
> discrete tubes and other components.
>
>
>
> --
> Bruce Johnson
> University of Arizona
> College of Pharmacy
> Information Technology Group
>
> Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs
>
>
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