By the title you would be forgiven for thinking, what an odd combination and where is the link? Well we had two talks by two of our members, the first one being about seamless ring rolling by Andrew (Drew) Inglis from a sales directors point of view. Drew was Sales Director at Woodhouse & Rixson, later known as Firth Rixson who specialise in the seamless rolling of both steel and super alloy rings, used in the aerospace industry and oil production.
The term super alloys covers materials which are either nickel or cobalt based and they have extremely high strength and oxidation resistance at the elevated temperatures found in jet engines. The rings are used, amongst other things, to contain the engines and prevent serious damage to an aircraft if engine failure occurs. Drew also described how steel rings are used to form the couplings of the bore hole liners in the oil industry.
The second presentation was by Dr. Douglas Grubb (Doug), who entertained us by playing songs by Tom Lehrer, the first song being called ‘The Elements’ which was about the elements in the Periodic table in inorganic chemistry. We listened to several other songs including – Be Prepared – The Wild West Is Where I Want To Be – Good Old American Know How – What Ever Became Of Hubert? – and So-long Mom.