At Joyworks we assuage the Edisonian inside all of us. Joyworks is an environment for trying new stuff…..even stuff with low odds of success. In the process of doing this we develop new knowledge and, every once in a while, a new, innovative technique for doing something that a Newtonian approach would have overlooked. No amount of technical training or calculation can equate to the knowledge (and experience) gained by spilling some iron on one’s shoes or watching a full-pattern rise, phoenix-like up from the sand pressed by evolved gases.
Our long-time Joyworks assistant, Demetri Golematis, encountered, and learned from, all of that….and more. Demetri recently graduated with his BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan and has left us to become a design engineer at Nissan. We’re pretty sure that Nissans, in some small way, will be better having Demetri’s experiences and skills woven into them. We wish Demetri the best in his new career.
Meanwhile we welcome David Ameche (a UoM Aerospace Engineering student) as a new Joyworks assistant. With Ryan Breneman (a UoM Material Science and Engineering PhD student) and help and guidance of Meghan Oaks and Dr. Kathy Hayrynen of Applied Process, we are moving forward on lots of interesting projects. I just saw a new hot-wire device for cutting foams out there. David made the device from a lamp cord, a piece of welding wire and a rheostat……just the kind of stuff that we do. We’re planning to cast aluminum shouldering devices for the UoM gun club and prep for our fall MSE 350 metal casting lab extravaganza with 50 to 60 UoM students.
Joyworks will also host the Foundry Education Foundation board of directors later this summer. The FEF crew is interested to see what that crazy Keough is doing out on Joy Road.
In the recent past we’ve been pouring big alloyed ductile iron step blocks to run through the various quenches at the Applied Process plants and those of their licensees to compare and further quantify the quench severities and account for any differences in the proprietary computer models.
Coming up, a bronze work for Jules Henry Keough, a cast Joyworks logo hanging sign, some golf club back weights for a local Ann Arbor enthusiast, more work on Austempered Ductile Iron (ADI) down-the-hole components for the oil and gas industry and, perhaps, some work on high-carbon cast steel. The fun never stops at Joyworks. The yellow poppies by the studio are in full bloom…..we wish you were here.