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Speaking of Precision

Speaking of Precision is a knowledge preservation and thought leadership blog covering the precision machining industry, its materials and services. With over 36 years of hands on experience in steelmaking, manufacturing, quality, and management, Miles Free (Milo) Director of Industry Research and Technology at PMPA helps answer "How?" "With what?" and occasionally "Really?"

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Riding Lawnmowers - A Machinist's View

Posted April 18, 2012 8:00 AM by Milo

Talking with a colleague about riding lawnmowers the other day.

It's that time of year around here in Ohio.

He thought that a riding lawnmower symbolized the apogee of human evolution-

"What else demonstrates how far we have come than being able to sit down, ride around for a couple of hours, listen to some tunes, maybe enjoy a cold beverage, and at the end look around and say I did this? I mowed a couple acres of lawn."

He has a point. Our ability to engineer, combine bits of metal and ingenuity have made our lives better in so many ways.

During my time in the mills I kept score similarly with calculating how many cars could be made from the the dozen or so 180 ton heats of steel that we produced that day… or how many millions of razor blades or piano pins could be made from the last ingots of Open Hearth Steel we had in inventory before the plant closed?

Or the 14 frozen railroad bin cars that I personally unloaded one particularly nasty 4 to 12 shift back in 1974.

So in honor of my colleague's salute to engineering's contribution to human evolution, here are a couple of my favorite riding lawnmower photos. Enjoy!

(I wonder if the paint scheme merits a cease and desist letter?)

You know the wife will think you're having too much fun:

(Honey, can I go mow the lawn today? Please?)

(Maybe this guy ought to grow some lawn first...)

Pedal power riding mower

Chopper

Redneck Lawnmower

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phoenix911 Guru Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 22955 Good Answers: 416	#1 Re: Riding Lawnmowers - A Machinist's View 04/18/2012 9:10 AM
	You know the wife will think you're having too much fun: Last year, I bought a leaf blower, because my girlfriend wanted one. She could wait to use it, so I put it together and sent her on her way. After a couple 2 hours I still heard the leaf blower running, I went to check on her and she was about (2) houses down, blowing the leaves on niehbors lawn, who was out of town on vacation. I asked her what are you doing? She said she blowing the leaves otherwise it'll blow into her lawn. Made sense. I looked up and down the street, and saw she did all the neighbors lawns. OK. About a week later, when a neighbor was doing lawn work, she went over with her leaf blower again. __________________ “ When people get what they want, they are often surprised when they get what they deserve " - James Wood
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Doorman Guru Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Yellowstone Valley, in Big Sky Country Posts: 7001 Good Answers: 284	#2 Re: Riding Lawnmowers - A Machinist's View 04/18/2012 9:50 AM
	I like the bicycle. What powers the headlite? Is he really going to mow the yard at night? I will add a salute to human ingenuity: __________________ When you come to a fork in the road, take it. (Yogiism)
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