I'm With Her: Making the Vinyl for "See You Around"

I'm a fan of I'm With Her. In fact, I have tickets for their concert in Cincinnati on July 11. Great harmonies, great musicianship, loads of fun from three songwriters with great voices. Check out this live performance 

That's neither here nor there for today's video, however, as it's focused on the production of the vinyl for their first album. Initially the grooves are carved in a thin lacquer on an aluminum disk to make a master. The disk is then metallized with a thin coating of aluminum which is then copied as another metal disk to create a mother - another metal disk which is then used to make the actual vinyl records.

I'll admit that the general idea - make a positive to make a negative to make a whole bunch of positive copies - is fairly straight forward, but I've never seen the specific process for vinyl records.

ASM Teacher Camps - 2025

2025! 

That's the future, folks! 

Welcome to the future!

If you want to know how to be successful in that future, check out the ASM materials camp for teachers. 

The schedule for the 2025 summer camps is available online, and if you need to be convinced that the teachers camps are amazing, check out all the videos I've posted about the camps. There's no better sales pitch than the testimonials from our attendees.

littering war zone halos named for fallen heroes

Stick with me, folks.

I wouldn't normally turn to Fox News for my science reporting, but their story does the best job - of the ones I quickly searched on YouTube - of explaining the Kopp-Etchells effect in which the edges of helicopter rotor blades get abraded via airborn grains of sand, sending showers of pyrophoric tittanium-nickel alloys into the air and making for a lovely light show - that admittedly shortens the lifespan of the blades and advertises the presence of the helicopters at night.

Effectively, it turns the edges of the blades into sparklers.

It makes for some really pretty pictures, though...

Source - reddit

Source - wikipedia

Here's another video with a little more science presented in meme-ified format.

People said this experiment was impossible, so I tried it

As promised last week, here's the first Veritasium video about thermite. 

I'm not thrilled that Dr Derek's titles seem to be getting more clickbaity and less informative. Again this week, the video's title isn't really what the video is about. It's a minor part of the video - here addressed in about six minutes in the middle of the video - and doesn't really cover the bulk of the video's content.

With that being said, seeing thermite in slow motion and through glass is pretty stunning.

Great video...bad title...

Why don't railroads need expansion joints?

The title of this video - which might change since I'm writing this up just a day after it was posted to YouTube - is a bit misleading. The actual question in the title - why don't railroads need expansion joints - is only answered in the last half minute or so of the video and is answered more thoroughly in a Practical Engineering video that I'll post after a jump.

The bulk of the video is spent explaining how railroad welds using thermite work. The video explains the nuances far better than other thermite videos I've posted before, explaining why the rails must be aligned and peaked, why the rails must be preheated (including a nice demonstration of heat treating), how the crystal structure changes as a result of the weld, and eventually why the rails don't need expansion joints.

This is the second of at least three thermite videos from Dr Derek. I thought I'd posted the first video to both blogs, but I can't seem to find it, so it'll likely show up next week.

Making an atomic trampoline

I'll admit that I entered the giveaway to hopefully win one of NileRed's atomic trampolines.

No luck, though, so I'll only be able to show the video.

An atomic trampoline is really high on my matsci wish list, though. I want one so desperately.

I certainly watched this NileRed video and came to the conclusion that I'm a lot of money and skills away from making one myself.

How Disc Golf Discs Are Made (MVP Manufacturing Tour) - Smarter Every Day 301

Summer of George!

I do want Destin to get back to making shorter videos like his initial, six-and-a-half-minute Prince Rupert's drops video, but I understand that he's just working to optimize for the algorithm. 

At least the Smarter Every Day videos are quality videos from tip to tail, showing brilliant views and asking questions along the way of the entire manufacturing process.

I learn so much from all of Destin's videos.

And I'm going to get myself some of those MVP discs.