Tale of a saucepan lid

[excoriator]

We have a small saucepan with a stainless steel lid which has basically a stainless rod bent to form a handle, flattened at the ends and spot welded to the lid. For around 20 years its been fine despite the fact that only one of the spot welds had worked The other end was not attached at all. The other day Mrs E. presented me with the lid and handle separately. The second weld had failed.

No problem I thought. I'll drill the ends, tap the holes, drill a couple of holes in the lid and use M2 stainlkess screws. I drilled the holes in the two handle ends and successfully tapped the first one. Unfortunately, though, I snapped the tap in the other hole! Oh dear! I said. (well, many words to that effect) There was no way I could get it out.

After a day thinking about it, I thought I'd have a go at spot welding it myself. I have a number of supercapacitors which are capable of being discharged at well over 1,000 Amps so contrapted a way of clamping the two parts together with copper rods, charged the series connected capacitors up to about 15 volts and threw the switch (well touched the two heavy wires together) To my surprise and delight it worked a treat! I did the same at the other end of the handle, and that too worked!

Triumphantly, I presented Mrs E. with the repaired saucepan lid

"Oh! she said. I bought a replacement on the internet it's just arrived. I thought from the bad language that the repair wasn't going well. It was only £5."

Sometimes one feels unappreciated.

[aubrey]

You both got what you wanted though: Mrs Ex got her lid, and you got a day of problem solving.


I was alarmed for a moment though at seeing the thread title: I thought you'd turned into a cockney (if you don't know, Saucepan lid is an especially contrived bit of rhyming slang).

[excoriator]

Relax, I would never spot weld a child. It wouldn't work.

Do you recall a BBC childrens entertainer called 'Uncle Mac'? A bad-tempered curmudgeonly individual with little tolerance of childish high spirits, he used to host a childrens record request programme and discouraged all popular music from it. I don't know how he found them, I suppose they might exist, but nine year olds requesting Chopin and Beethoven ot "The young person's guide to the orchestra" ? I think not. He used to deliver stern sermons on the use of 'kids' for children, "Kids are young goats!" he used to declare.

His career came to an unfortunate end when, after terminating his programme with his standard sign off of "Goodbye children, ... everywhere" he thought the microphone was dead and added "You little bugggers!". Unfortunately it was still live and it went out. They were his last words on air.

I suppose he could dine out on the fact that his last word on the BBC was 'Buggers' though.

[aubrey]

I've heard of him, but I never heard him. I'm glad the story ended like that though, and not in the other way.

My dad would never swear, but he had little or no problem with Bugger, which he seemed to think of as being on a par with Ruddy. But "You little buggers" is affectionate, isn't it?

[excoriator]

Alas I didn't hear it, and I expect it has now been excised from the Beeb's archives.

I don't think it was meant affectionately in Uncle Mac's case. I recall my father saying he'd met him once - I have no idea where or how - but he told me he had been badly injured in the war and was often in severe pain due to it, so perhaps one can forgive his occasional lapses of patience with the little buggers.

[jonjel]

Beware Exco. Some SS pans have aluminium rivets which connect the handles to the pans. And the dishwasher plays hell with them. I have replaced some of mine with SS small bolts as the prospect of a large pan of hot stuff going down my trousers is not something I relish.

And as an aside, we once 'designed' a liquid nitrogen pump to transfer from a 25 litre Dewar to a job. It comprised a soldering iron element through a large rubber bung and a hose. Worked a treat. However the bung iced up on my customer. He wriggled it free to be met with liquid nitrogen under pressure which erupted down the front of his trousers and froze them to his legs. We had a few laughs and he said to me 'JJ, if that had been a few inches higher I think my wife would have sued you!' Those were the days, nice academic people who were a lot of fun.

[excoriator]

In a recent unrelated discussion on alternative methods of pig-sticking at abattoirs, it emerged that CO2 is used to suffocate them to death, in America anyway.

This struck me as quite unkind as suffocation is detected by the build up of CO2 in the lungs and the poor brutes must be aware of what is happening for long seconds before they die.

I read somewhere that nitrogen is just as good at suffocating you, but as its four fifths of normal air, there is no sensation of suffocation. You suddenly lose consciousness with no warning. There have, its claimed, been fatalities and some near fatalities who relate the effects. My experience with the liquid stuff is a limited, and I wonder if you can confirm this and what precautions need to be taken. Nitrogen must be cheaper than CO2 anyway I'd have thought so the pig stickers might be easily persuaded to switch to this hopefully kinder gas.

Going a little further, I was pondering the use of hydrogen fuel cell powered trains which are now beginning to be used. It occurred to me that they could be used in underground systems eliminating teh need for the third rail, cabling and costs as well as the hazards involved, but realised that the fuel cells use atmospheric oxygen thereby raising the level of nitrogen in the ambient air, perhaps to a dangerous level.

[jonjel]

I really don't know about nitrogen and suffocation - the only sensible advice I have ever been given is, if you see the safety officer running, try and keep up with him!

CO2 suffocation I think could be nasty. I once worked at Tetley Walker brewery, not too far from you and now I believe a supermarket car park. There you could see the CO2 coming over the sides of the huge brewery vats as a clear haze, a bit like a heat haze. I did hear of one chap who fell in and was drowned. Apparently he got out twice for a pee before he died so it is probably untrue....!

I thought a build up of CO2 made you fight for breath as it triggers the response in the brain that encourage you to breathe, so if the US do use that I think it is inhumane, but nothing much surprises me out there.

[excoriator]

I'm reluctant to suggest it to them as they would probably use it for humans on death row.