How do you spell this word?

[BTM]

Okay, thinking of the word "sa bo", it's like padding you put around an object that's going to be launched so that it falls off after an item is shot out of a tube (or container).  The padding enables whatever object is being fired to go smoothly down the pipe.  They use this a lot on Mythbusters, like with the chicken gun.

Anyway, I've tried spelling it all the ways I can guess of and looking the word up, but I can't get it right. 

Anyway if anyone can help, I'd appreciate it!

Thanks!

[schmendrik]

Is it this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabot

[BTM]

Is it this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabot

Yes, that it's it!  Thank you!  It was the silent "t" that was throwing me off...

:)

[CheezeFlixz]

Yep Sabot (pronounced Say-bo) is also a type of armor piercing artillery round.

[BTM]

Yep Sabot (pronounced Say-bo) is also a type of armor piercing artillery round.

Dunno if it's true or not, but I also seem to recall a line of dialogue from Star Trek 6 where that Vulcan woman says that in olden days, factory workers, fearing their jobs would be taken over by machines, threw their shoes, called sabot, into the machines, hence the word "sabotage." 

Again, not sure if that's really the origin of the word, but it's an interesting story...

[Jack]

I used to work at a place that made sabots that went around the armor piercing tank rounds.  They were three pieces of aluminum made into a cylinder.  They'd attach them together and put them in a lathe to shape them.  Sometimes the method of attachment would prove insufficient, you could hear it all the way up in the office 

Kinda like this:

[dean]

Years of various military based video games taught me what a Sabot is, yet never how to pronounce it until this thread.

[Fishasaurus]

Yep Sabot (pronounced Say-bo) is also a type of armor piercing artillery round.

Dunno if it's true or not, but I also seem to recall a line of dialogue from Star Trek 6 where that Vulcan says that in olden days, factor workers, fearing their jobs would be taken over by machines, threw their shoes, called sabot, into the machines, hence the word "sabotage." 

Again, not sure if that's really the origin of the word, but it's an interesting story...

That is the origin of the word.  "Sabot" (sah-bo) refers specifically to a wooden clog.  The American version of that of course is "monkey wrench," because it's the American way to throw metal, not wood, into the machinery to gum it up.

[BTM]

I used to work at a place that made sabots that went around the armor piercing tank rounds.  They were three pieces of aluminum made into a cylinder.  They'd attach them together and put them in a lathe to shape them.  Sometimes the method of attachment would prove insufficient, you could hear it all the way up in the office 

Kinda like this:

A few years back, I did a temp job in a factory that manufactured medium caliber ammunition.  It was a pretty fascinating place, even though I spent most of my time in the office area usually doing paperwork and stuff, I did on occasion go over to the manufacturing plant.  When I went in that area, I had to put on eye gear, wear steel toed buttons, and drag a thin metal chain along the floor as I walked.  They said the watering system had a hair sensitive trigger, the slightest spark (or a flash from say, a camera) would trigger the sprinkler system, which, while preventing a fire, would also ruin thousands of dollars worth of work.

And if you wonder why they'd have a system set up that, just remember two words: gun powder!  A single spark would be a VERY bad thing.  (Although the damage would be limited because the planet was composed of several small buildings, each built with several feet of concrete in the walls, which is the main you could get many stations on any office radio...) 

It was THE best job I've ever had strictly in terms of pay ($10 an hour, if you're curious.)  Sadly, I never got hired on as a full time worker.