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I noticed these at work the other day when I'd been press-ganged into helping pack components in a hurry for despatch...
Some parts that we machine have to be individually packed to avoid damage in transit, as the couriers tend to play football with packages marked 'Fragile' and 'Handle with Care'. We have a gazillion different sizes of these plastic tubes ranging from lipstick-sized ones up to serious flashlight-size, all with the same lovely spiral shape where the top screws into its mating part. (Ooh - er!)
I just thought they looked cool with the light shining through, but then if you follow my photostream, you know I'm a little bit odd that way...
Unfortunately not THE famous golden arches...
Back at work after a day off sick, and I resumed the stocktaking that we should've completed at the end of April! Did I ever say that counting really isn't my thing?
These little dovetail slides were my chief project at work today...
These particular ones are for use in vacuum applications, so each individual component has to be ultrasonically cleaned, then assembled with the relevant vacuum-compatible lubricant - all without touching the thing with bare hands! So, I have spent the day with my fingers encased in miniature condoms... ;-)
I don't recall seeing this before in the workshop, but then again, I'm often accused of going around with my eyes shut!
I assume it's used for polishing, but it looks a tad vicious to me. Puts me in mind of those punk cockscomb hairstyles you used to see dyed bright pink in the 80's...
I detest stocktaking.
It's bad enough that I have to count all the components that I assemble, but I ALWAYS get lumbered with counting the contents of the bloody screw cabinets... There must be at least a gazillion of the little buggers from M1 up to M6, with variations of each sort, and if there's anything that's more boring than counting screws so small that one sneeze scatters them across the room, it's reading about counting screws....
I'll shut up then, shall I?
For the Macro Mondays group theme '90 degrees'...
I had so many shots that I could have used for this week's theme that it was hard to choose! I've included this one because my snazzy orange pipe benders are already in the MM pool under the 'Tools' theme!
Found these huge curls of aluminium swarf in the bins today whilst wandering round the workshop in an idle moment...
I was asked to photograph a part-machined component, as there was a problem that needed to be pointed out to the client...
I just couldn't stop myself getting all arty-farty with it though... ;-)
Not only did I spend time taking pictures of my Dad's watch today, but I was pressed into service to attempt some hasty pictures of components made by my company to use on our new website...
These are for use in fibre optic connectors - the ceramic ferrules have a minute hole down the centre if you look carefully. In fact, all these tubes have a central hole for a fibre. My problem today was that I had no way of securing these to the background, and every time my lens bumped the sheet of card with the company logo on, the bloody tubes would roll away!
As precision engineers, we were reknowned for producing microscopic components for the fibre optics and telecommunications industries...
Lately, we have diversified into other fields and now produce parts for the gas and oil industry as well as components for the aerospace market - which seem humungous compared to the miniscule parts of yesteryear!
These part-finished chunks caught my eye and I just HAD to shoot them for posterity...
Wandering around the empty workshop after hours, I discovered this box of components awaiting cleaning...
How many times have I said these aren't to be piled up like this??? That aside, I rather liked the monochrome look, highlighted as it was by the rich amber of the oil pooled in odd corners.
Heads will still roll tomorrow though...
One of the huge bar-feeds on our CNC machines at work. It reminds me of those old Gatling guns you see in war movies...
Colour tweaked to warm things up and make the sticky oil residue look like it's doing something artistic...
I thought I'd put all this kind of thing behind me when I left Junior school...
One of today's charming little tasks at work was to fill the engraved lines in these knobs with engraver's wax, a filthy, repetitive job whereby one rubs the wax crayon into the grooves with a finger, leaves it to warm up on a hotplate, then polishes off the surplus.
So, when you next see something with engraved lines on it, think of the poor sap that has to do the 'colouring-in'!