Beam (machine)

“ The lower beam carries on a saddle a scale which is raised nearly to the top of the glass case in which the machine is enclosed, and as the beams sway this scale plays past a scratch on the glass, which is so placed that when the zero point on the scale coincides with the scratch the beams are horizontal. With proper care this machine should be very permanent in its action. ”

“ Malachiah Roby, Kosciusko, Miss.—This machine is so constructed as to bar off and dirt or cultivate cotton plants at one operation; and the invention relates to the construction and arrangement of a center or main beam, to the forward end of which the draft is attached. To the beam, a little in the rear of its forward end, is attached the middle part of a crossbar, in which are formed a number of holes to receive the hooks or clevises by which the forward ends of side beams are secured to said crossbar. ”

“ In present looms a special machine is provided for taking the threads from the bobbins or cops and laying them in an even sheet to form the warp of the loom. These are wound on a beam and the [280] machine is known as a beam warper. As the threads are apt to be somewhat fuzzy it is necessary to size them, and a machine known as a slasher is employed for this purpose. This machine coats each thread of warp yarn with a sizing compound or an adhesive and dries the sheet of warp preparatory to its use in the loom. ”

“ That takes energy. The beam is focused on a body, the body falls nearer, and immediately absorbs the energy in acquiring a velocity. The machine replenishes the energy, because it is set to maintain a certain energy-level in the field. Therefore the machine must do the work of moving the ship, just as though it were a driving apparatus. After the beam has done what is wanted, it may be shut off, and the energy in the field is now available for any work needed. It may be drained back into power coils such as ours for instance, or one might just spend that last iota of power on the job. ”

“ Machines are made of a variable number of carriers to suit goods of different character that are required. Provision is made to carry the rubber beam in hanging brackets underneath the machine, which are of sufficient strength and firmness to carry the maximum weight necessary for governing the rubber tension. Above the machine there is a gear-driven take-up shaft, on which are tension rolls to govern the feed of the goods when braiding. ”

“ The sugar is run into a conical hopper and is delivered into the open mouth of a bag which is placed on the goodspan of a balance. The balance consists of a pair of equal-armed beams rigidly connected together and acting as a single beam. A 4-℔ weight is placed in the weights-pan of the balance, and is the only loose weight used with the machine. The pair of beams are hung centrally by rods and hooks from knife-edges in the forked end of a strong beam, which is carried at its fulcrum by the top plate of the frame of the machine. ”

“ In fact, if the testing machine is running slowly, it takes some time for the lower head to catch up with the stretching steel. Consequently at the yield point, the top head is suddenly but only temporarily relieved of load, and the scale beam drops. ”

“ Above this roller-beam, is the creel-ring N O, which (either in one or two rows) receives the sixty roving bobbins that supply the sixty spindles, of which the Machine is composed: and whose threads pass under the eight sets of rollers—one thread being suppressed in each of the heads—1, 4, 5, 8, on account of the columns. (This, at least, is the arrangement I prefer; but some of the Machines have been made with eight threads in all the compartments.) ”

“ Through the pattern devices the proper spool or beam is brought into position to be seized by a pair of fingers which rise, take the spool from the chain, lower it to the warp, pass the ends of the tuft yarn through and around the proper warp thread, hold them till the insertion of a binding weft, then, when they have been properly cut to length, return the spool into its place in the chain. This creation of mechanical genius takes rank with the wonders of the spinning mule and, like that machine, passes through its entire operation with the precision of an automaton. ”

“ Great care is used in its construction, thus making it a very efficient part of the loom, and is driven from the same shaft as the journals and box motion, thus working in harmony with them. The take-up motion is positive, and is very substantial and accurate, consisting of fluted rolls, and operated by the usual train of gearing, while the goods are wound up on a roll below. The let-off is controlled by the tension of the warp over a rocking whip roll, operated by a cam on the bottom shaft, held by a clamp friction, geared to the head of the beam. ”

“ The spools used on the carriers are specially designed, and have a series of notches on the upper end, into which a stop will drop upon the breaking of any of the different covering threads, automatically stopping the machine.
The rubber is carried on a beam such as is used in weaving. These beams are grooved on either side for receiving friction cords or belts, on which are hung weights so as to govern the let-off of the beams and keep the rubber at a high tension. ”

“ The beam-engine, in its adaptation to the conditions under which it was designed to work—namely, a piston speed of 220 feet per minute and a pressure of one or two atmospheres—was as nearly perfect as any work of human skill ever was or will be; but we wonder why the outraged ghost does not haunt the men who cling to the material form they have inherited, when the conditions which it was designed to meet have been all outgrown, who have used up his factor of safety, and now stand among their trembling and breaking structures, deprecating everything which these will not endure. ”

“ The leading characteristics of such machines are, first, a convenient platform nicely balanced on knife edges of steel levers, and second, a graduated horizontal beam, a sliding weight thereon connected by an upright rod at one end to the beam, and at its opposite end to the balance frame beneath the platform. ”

“ Now, every machine operator and field hand on the planet thinks he can reincarnate as a prince or a millionaire. Politics isn’t my subject, but I’m willing to bet that since Statistical Reincarnation is an exploded psychic theory, Statisticalist Socialism has been caught in the blast area and destroyed along with it.”
Olirzon was in the drawing room of the hotel suite when they returned, sitting on the middle of his spinal column in a reclining chair, smoking a pipe, dressing the edge of his knife with a pocket-hone, and gazing lecherously at a young woman in the visiplate. ”

“ It will therefore be useful for us to examine the strength of a beam when its load is applied otherwise than at the centre. [Pg 199]
406. We shall employ, in the first place, a beam 40" span, 0"·5 broad, and 1" deep; and we shall break it by applying a load simultaneously at two points, as may be most conveniently done by the contrivance shown in the diagram, Fig. 53. a b is the beam resting on two supports; c and d are the points of trisection of the span; from whence loops descend, which carry an iron bar p q; at the centre r of which a weight w is suspended. ”

“ They don't believe in the Brain as a tool, to use; it's a machine god that they can bring all their troubles to. You can't take a thing like that away from people without giving them something better."
"I noticed you suggested building a spaceship and agreed with the professor about building a computer. What was your idea? To take their minds off hunting for the Brain and keep them busy?"
Conn shook his head. ”

“ I do not kill for revenge; I kill because dead men do no harm."
"Hradzka will do us no more harm," the old scientist replied. "He is a thing of yesterday; of a time long past and half-lost in the mists of legend."
"No matter. As long as he exists, at any point in space-time, Hradzka is still a threat. Revenge means much to Hradzka; he will return for it, when we least expect him."
The old man shook his head. "No, Zarvas Pol, Hradzka will not return."
Hradzka holstered his blaster, threw the switch that sealed the "time-machine", put on the antigrav-unit and started the time-shift unit. ”

“ The larger of the specks that had appeared on the horizon resolved itself into a handling-machine, a thing [4] like an oversized contragravity-tank, with a bulldozer-blade, a stubby derrick-boom instead of a gun, and jointed, claw-tipped arms to the sides. The smaller dots grew into personal armor—egg-shaped things that sprouted arms and grab-hooks and pushers in all directions. The man with the grizzled beard began talking rapidly into his hand-phone, then hung it up. There was a series of bumps, and the armor-tender, weightless on contragravity, shook as the handling-machine came aboard. ”

“ Counter machines have an advantage over scale-beams in not being encumbered with suspension chains and the beam above. They are usually made with two beams, each with its three knife edges, rigidly tied together or cast in one piece and some distance apart, so that the scale-pans being carried on two knife-edges, each is prevented from tipping over sideways. To prevent them from tipping over in the direction of the beams a vertical leg is rigidly fastened to the under side of each pan, the lower end of which is loosely secured by a horizontal stay to a pin in the middle of the frame. ”

“ In a moment, everything was glowing-hot: driblets of aluminum and silver were running down from the instruments. Then the whole interior of the "time-machine" was afire; there was barely time for Hradzka to leap through the open door.
The brush outside impeded him, and he used his blaster to clear a path for himself away from the big sphere, which was now glowing faintly on the outside. The heat grew in intensity, and the brush outside was taking fire. It was not until he had gotten two hundred yards from the machine that he stopped, realizing what had happened. ”

“ The driver, upon releasing the flares, had nosed up, banked, turned, and was coming in again, down the road toward the advancing column. Von Schlichten peered into his all-armament sight, his foot on the machine-gun pedal and his fingers on the rocket buttons. The highway below was jammed with geeks, and they were all stopped dead and staring upward, as though hypnotized by the lights. It was obviously a mob. A second later, they had recovered and were shooting—not at the airjeep, but at the four globes of blazing magnesium. Then he had the close-packed mass of non-humanity in his sights ”

“ So I took him around over the boat, showing him everything and conscripting any crew members I came across to explain what I couldn't. I showed him the scout boat in its berth, and we climbed into it and looked around. I showed him the machine that packed the wax into skins, and the cargo holds, and the electrolytic gills that extracted oxygen from sea water while we were submerged, and the ship's armament. Finally, we got to the engine room, forward. He whistled when he saw the engines.
"Why, those things are big enough for a five-thousand-ton freighter," he said.
"They have to be," I said. ”

“ The tool, so hard that a journey through many miles of steel has no appreciable effect on its edge, shears its way remorselessly over the surface which presently may be tempered to a toughness resembling its own. If you want to resharpen the tool, it will be no good to attack it with any known metal. But somewhere in the works there is a machine whose buzzing emery-wheels are more than a match for it, and rapidly grind the blunted edge into its former shape, so that it is ready to flay another plate, one skin at a time. ”

“ As the drum rotates the threads are drawn from the bobbins and wrapped in even coils upon the beam. On most of these machines mechanism is attached for arresting motion on the fracture of a thread, and also for accurately measuring and recording the lengths of warp made. When full, a warpers beam holds threads of much greater length than are needed for any warp, but they are insufficient in number. ”

“ For "Time" is not an object, or a medium which can be travelled along. The "Time-Machine" was not a vehicle; it was a mechanical process of displacement within the space-time continuum, and those who constructed it knew that it could not be used with the sort of accuracy that the dials indicated. Hradzka had ordered his scientists to produce a "Time Machine", and they had combined the possible—displacement within the space-time continuum—with the sort of fiction the dictator demanded, for their own well-being. ”

“ Are they sufficiently powerful to produce a useful effect with so short a motion? This I cannot say from experience; but, from the known strength of iron and steel, their power, in these dimensions, must be very great. A few more observations may occur in the course of the enlarged description we shall give of the Machine itself.
A B C are three pipes of cast iron, well turned at the end, and having conical points of iron, well steeled, let into them, so as to have no tendency to bend. a b c are three steel bars, placed in troughs, so as to be heated or cooled by water poured into the latter. ”

“ Having magnetized the soft iron in the way described, we now join up the wires to the binding screws, under the base, and, the pulley being fixed on to the axle of the armature opposite to the commutator, the machine is now ready for use. To rotate the armature at a high speed it is necessary to connect the pulley by an endless band with a large, heavy wheel which can be rotated by hand.
For continuous work, as we cannot always be turning the wheel, a small steam-engine or water-motor must be employed. ”