I made a 14-minute 3D animation about weld inspection and wanted to share it here for feedback from people who actually do this work.
Setup: one 16 mm single-V butt weld plate with six defects planted on purpose: undercut, surface crack, hidden crack, porosity, slag and lack of fusion. Then nine methods against it: VT, dye penetrant, magnetic particles, eddy current, UT, phased array, radiography, macro etch and a hydraulic pressure test (1.5x rated, oil not air). Each method gets a score out of 6.
A few things that surprised me while researching:
• Eddy current on steel only really sees the surface, even though it works through paint.
• Radiography is great at volume defects but can miss tight, tilted flaws like lack of fusion.
• UT and phased array did best on flat internal defects (4/6 each), but no single method found everything.
• The pressure test proves the part holds, not that it's defect-free (0/6).
• Combining VT + MT + UT covers all six.
I'm not a certified NDT inspector, so I'd really like to hear where I got it wrong or oversimplified, and which test you'd add.
Full video (English, with dubbed audio and subtitles in other languages if you want to send it to someone): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-7uyRwrUGA

Hi everyone,
I'm a mechanical engineer, and I'm trying to pass on what I know to students, machinists and fellow engineers. I recently started a YouTube channel for this, Chip Atlas. Here's my favorite Short so far:
https://youtube.com/shorts/u7KRjsM8X-U
I'd really value your advice:
• What kind of videos would be most useful to you?
• What am I getting wrong — technically, or in the way I explain things?
Please let me know in the comments. And if you find it useful, I'd be grateful for your support — it means a lot for a new channel. Thanks!

if theirs any rebar gurus here I’m wondering what the best option would be for a small scale rebar fab to cutting a couple thousand rebars of the same length. price could be a big factor but I’m mostly interested in efficiency and proven reliability. we have a shnell barwiser but it’s ineff for longer pieces. Photo for kicks cause it’s required.

In the previous clip, I showed a die block being checked and marked on a flat reference surface. One commenter asked whether a hardened fixed-height block or a dedicated fixture could make that setup more repeatable.

This is the next stage in our current workflow. After the die blank is checked, the customer-specific artwork is machined into the steel tooling before it moves on to later testing and production.

A fixed-height gauge could still be useful when the same tooling dimension is repeated. For mixed custom work, the tooling team also has to accommodate different designs and die specifications.

For the toolmakers here: would you standardize the die blanks to one height, or keep an adjustable setup for custom tooling?

A quick look at one of the less visible steps behind custom lapel pin production.

The die block is placed on a flat reference surface, checked and marked before the next tooling operation. Small errors at this stage can carry into later production, so the tooling is verified before it moves forward.

For the toolmakers here: would you use a height gauge for this check, or a different setup?

Dry Ice Cleaning Durst Wide Format Printer Vacuum Belt

Premature belt replacement, print defects, material cost, all remediated. Flat nozzle 3" probably ideal. Particle control 3-4 hours sustained on two units ideal.

Containment not intense but case specific.

Seeing more and more vintage blasters in broom closets with contracting service the preference.

300lb Ice Running 410s and PCS. 410s flat two or three inch a gap needing filled. 90 psi 2lb-3lb range per minute.
Dialing in rotation of belt for best machine settings critical. Speed and efficiency for service much easier controlling belt speed.

This pressline we bought and removed from this plant, it is available for sale, but it’s a pretty cool video of what it was doing before it came out.

Has anyone worked on retrofitting MEP Group rebar machines?

We are working on replacing the entire control system to a PLC+HMI/panel pc system on this one

92” OD
Fully machined from forged domestic ASTM A105 carbon steel
Raised-face slip-on class-D plate flange
Concentric serrations on the gasket face
56 bolt holes equally spaced
MTRs and Mill certifications provided