Hey mister tally-man tally me big foam eggs...
I think he's going to fill a million eggs with cocaine in South America, cast them into the ocean and wait for the gulf stream to convey them up to Liverpool and Glasgow.
The whole project will be grant funded by the DCMS as 'Transient Marine Installation Art'
Owain
You're too late. Do switch the light off when you leave.
lysergic acid diethylamide ? although perhaps this is the cause rather then the cure in your case. :-)
surprisingly close actually. This bananas idea looks like a (highly unlikely) way to transport specific types of goods at no fuel cost. But not coke. And yep, they float.
I've no intention of carrying the project out at this point, just couldnt resist finding out if it might have some possibility in it.
I thought it was totally bonkers until I worked out how to prevent theft. Now its only barmy.
NT
lol, not the first time someones said that. Its one of those projects that I'd only think about during play time - it is a tad wacky. Just slightly. Not much.
NT
one is a 4" x 4", the other 2' x 2', surely the quantity of material will be of a different order of magnitude, as will the handling issues with giant 5' eggs! And of course its hollow and in 2 pieces that lock together...
Not to mention what happens when one falls over and goes on the rampage in your factory! I can see it now...
NT
by saving on fuel.
yep, but not for very long
dunno
erm
ha, yes.
yup, it must float with a payload.
NT
Lol. But it just might happen one day...
I guess the centre of manufacture would be a yellow factory in the middle of Eggland.
NT
4" x 4"?? We're not talking about sheet steel bumpers like on a Ford Anglia you know. Modern bumpers are large - about a foot high, and between 6" and a foot deep.
No, I don't think so. Many modern bumpers are completely foam filled. That's a large amount of foam.
This is true, but if they're tooling up to produce a million...
Yes, this could be the biggest problem.
Are you going to paint eyes on them to scare the 75 foot vultures away from your eggs? What about the prisoner fans who want to make them into hanging chairs?
Smuggling illegal immigrants from Canada to the US over Niagra Falls?
Bob
You can get material costs from bulk suppliers of polystyrene foam..insulation..
Or EPP foam os better..
Crash helmets etc. use that.
The tooling to mould such would be horrendous...you are talking hundreds of thousands of quid plus.
Try buying up the rover car body plant ;-)
A call to a moulder of packaging foiam might be your best bet.
heh. The goods will be securely doodahed in such a way that to any thief theyre nothing more than mixed material scrap with mild toxins built in, and given where theyre going it wont be worth stealing them for that.
Firstly minimise the usefulness of size and shape for this purpose.
2ndly theyll have unhideable ID all over them. 3rd they will give advantages that hopefully will encourage law enforcement to cooperate. Finally, yep there will be some, hopefully it will be a small percentage of a huge number. Theyre designed with limited life in mind anyway. And really finally, a high loss rate is expected and still adds up.NT
Truck and coach bumpers even bigger.
Actually, we're not talking far off a Sinclair C5 bodywork really are we.
I don't think they sound like eggs at all - more like sponge fingers.
I'm envisioning a cross between moulded polyurethane loudspeaker cabinets and the shells used to transport bits of dead people to the mortuary.
I know!!! It's for an amphibious C5 for use by disaster relief agencies!!!
Owain
Oh - a new factor in the equation - you never mentioned doodahing before.
I reckon you're holding back a lot.
Mary
With doodahed contents?
Mary
I see Dr No, you need a million anthrax delivery vesils, no problem, just let me genitacally engineer a chicken that can lay them.
Excuse me jumping in to the middle of the thread but this is where my newsreader has saved up to.
The following pages illustrate a technique/application that might be of interest
AFAICS these cases are made by Harddig
Just the job!
Mary
I would look at a rotationally moulded shell, with the foam as a separate problem. Rotational moulding is well suited to medium sized runs like this and can produce shells up to about 200 litres volume. It also has the distinct advantage that the moulds are made from sheet metal, which makes them relatively cheap to make.
You have various options for the inner foam. First, you could have it moulded as a separate item. However, that does add tooling costs, which could be significant. Second, you could have it cut from a sheet packing foam, such as Evazote. The cutting tools for this are fairly cheap to make and, with a well-designed layout, it would probably use the least amount of foam. Much of the inside can simply be filled with air. Third, you could use a foam in situ packing material. That is cheap, widely available and very flexible.
Price is a bit difficult, as I don't use these techniques in any of my manufacturing. However, looking at similar sized rotational moulded products, I would guess in the £100-£200 region for each outer, plus a wild guess at £20-£50 a time for expanding foam packing bags or cut foam inners.
Colin Bignell
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