Rides

I was feeling kinda crummy yesterday, so I spent some time flipping channels on the tube when I came across an old show (from 2004-5) called Rides. They are talking about cars, which is good, but what made it watchable was the pace. I don't think they had a clip of someone talking that lasted more than about 15 seconds, and then they went on. The music and the narration was a little overly dramatic, but it was tolerable, much better than the endless droning you get from most television.

Anyway yesterday's episode had them turning a '56 Chevy pickup into a hot-rod. The amount of sheet metal work that they put into the body on this project was tremendous. They cut the roof off, raked the windshield, and then reworked the doors to fit the changed openings in what was left of the cab.

Plasma Cutting

The real interesting part was that their favorite tool for all this cutting was a plasma torch. I had heard of people trying to develop a cold plasma torch some time ago, so I was intrigued. Turns out this is nothing so elegant. It is just a combination of an electric arc and a jet of compressed air. Still, it cuts smoother than a gas torch, which is saying something, because a gas torch is no slouch. I suppose the big benefit is you don't have to deal with the tanks of compressed gas.

I checked back to today and there was another episode on the DVR, this one about the pair of factory Corvettes competing at Sebring (in 2005). One of the cars crashed when one of the carbon fiber brake rotors exploded. I've heard of ceramic brake rotors (mostly from watching Top Gear), but this is the first I had heard of carbon fiber being used for this. A puff of black smoke appeared  when it happened.

Disk brake rotor on race car glowing red hot.

Brakes get hot. You can see the front rotor glowing red in the picture (the C shape in the center). I had seen similar sights on Top Gear, but they were daylight shots, so not quite so dramatic.

This reminded me of the old Chevrolet pickup truck ads that featured a truck driving down a mountain with blowtorches playing on the front disk brake rotors.

Update October 2016 replaced missing picture and fought with blogger over a link.