Re: short lesson on food cans
|
Rex,
The big three Ham manufacturers have nothing on your tuna cans!? Thanks for sharing and thanks for the history lesson!
Davey - KU9L
On Friday, February 17, 2023 at 09:49:51 PM EST, Rex Harper <tunacankits@...> wrote:
Dave & Gangue,
The new Sea Sprite+ kit will come in all sealed up in a 401 size
can....with a special label.
Short lesson on cans for QRPme proto boards is here: ??
Back in the DeMaw's day (1976), there was no such thing as an
EZ-Open can so mounting a board to a tuna can was quite tedious.
When it was 'Back to the Future-ized' by Doug Hendricks in his
NORCAL adventures it was still tedious. I bought a 1930's canning
machine from a museum in Lubec Maine and started kitting the kits
INSIDE tuna cans. I remember when it would take more time to mount
& wire up the connectors down in the can that it would take to
build the entire rest of the kit. Even then, EZ-Open lids were a
rarity usually only found on cat food cans as nobody wanted to
dirty up their can openers opening up that disgusting cat food!.
That's when I discovered the Dole's pineapple can. It was so easy
to open and then mount the pcb on the lip that remained from the
opening but I still had mount and wire those connectors down in
the can. I thought: "Gee, if I could only can the kits using an
EZ-Open lid, I could design an EZ-Builld TT2 with all the
connections ON the PCB and make it really EZ to Build...." I could
find EZ-Open lids but I had to buy like 8000 lids at a time and
even then, if I could find the $$$ to buy the lids it would cost
me $800 or so to have a special chuck made to seal them.
One day, I mentioned my EZ-Open lid dilemma to my can supplier
and he said to check with his canning machine service
troubleshooter "Maybe he will know where you could find one!". I
tracked him down, told him about my tuna can adventures and he
told me he had such a chuck right on his desk and he that was
using it as a paperweight!! He sent it to me for free and I got my
first batch of EZ-Open lids from him in the same box....all for
FREE! He finagled them from a customer and then sent them to me...
Then I found a supplier where I could buy the special lids and
scored on another canning machine for about $1500 that came with
extra chucks for 211 & 401 cans. I took those lids to my
friend the machinist and he modified both of my antique regular
chucks for EZ-Open lids. I've never looked back and have had lots
of FUN bringing out all kinds of kits in all 3 sized tuna cans.
W1REX
|
David Knapp