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Title: Mechanical Aptitude Post by: indianasmith on August 22, 2017, 06:35:42 AM This week's blog post is about one of the things that I am NOT good at . . . not at all! So I decided to channel the ghost of Dave Barry (which is weird, because he isn't dead!).
http://lewisliterarylair.blogspot.com/2017/08/mechanical-aptitude-aka-that-thing-i.html (http://lewisliterarylair.blogspot.com/2017/08/mechanical-aptitude-aka-that-thing-i.html) Title: Re: Mechanical Aptitude Post by: Pacman000 on August 22, 2017, 05:05:45 PM :bouncegiggle:
Funny stuff. Thanks for making me smile. :smile: I know a bit of sanskrit. Tho it's not perfect, since I wasn't taught by a drunken Hindu, I might be able to explain a bit. Quote Anyway, I was mowing my lawn a month or so back, and my lawnmower threw a belt. Where it threw the belt, I do not know - it looked like the belt was still there, just not doing its belty job, which was to make sure my blades turned rapidly and cut the nasty green stuff that just won't quit growing this year. Ok. Your lawn mower has an engine. The engine burns gasoline to create motion. How it does that doesn't matter in this situation; let's just say it's a given. A mysterious power which shall only be explained on a need-to-know basis. Basically think of the engine as a box. On one side of the box it takes in gas; on the other side it spins a stick. This spinning stick turns the wheels of your mower. The spinning stick turns blades of your mower. The spinning stick has nothing to do with a sonic screwdriver. Problem: the spinning stick is in one location; the blades are in another location, a few feet from the stick; the wheels are in still another location, a few feet from the blades and the stick. Let's not worry about the wheels; let's just focus on the blades. So we have to get the motion from the engine to the blades somehow. That's what the belt does. It wraps around the spinning stick on the engine, then wraps around other sticks which turn the blades. Wonderful. This is how it should work. But, as with everything in life, things don't always go according to plan. In this case the problem's the belt; it's just a piece of rubber, and rubber stretches. Hit a bump, and the belt may slip off the sticks. Bingo! the mower's "thrown" a belt! It's thrown the belt at best 6 inches, but now the belt's not doing it's belty job, so the mower's not doing it's mowery job, and the grass is still growin' like the jungle around the Amazon! You have three possibilities: 1) Take the mower to a mechanic, who knows how the belt's supposed to wrap around those sticks. 2) Try to figure out how the belt's supposed to wrap around those sticks yourself. 3) Make a Frank Buck fan film. You choose option #1 which is good, but I'm leaning a bit towards option #3. There's been an appalling shortage of jungle adventure flicks in the past 70 years; that needs to be corrected. :wink: |